analysis of water driven cars
TRANSCRIPT
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By Engr. Jamshaid Minhas Page 1
Water As A Last Hope For Future Energy Needs
by Engr. Jamshaid Akhtar Minhas
Water is the most essential element to life on Earth.
Almost 71% of the Earth's surface is covered with water,
approximately 55-80% of our body and 2/3 of universe
is water, without water nothing can exist. The benefits
of water goes far beyond the scope of just drinking
water. I hope to broaden your perspective and open a
window to a new view of water in our lives.
Water at its basic is a chemical substance with one
oxygen and two hydrogen atoms bonded together by a
covalent bond. Water appears in nature in all three
states of matters. Water also exists in a liquid crystal
state near hydrophilic surfaces. Clouds in the sky;
seawater in the oceans; icebergs in the polar oceans;
glaciers and rivers in the mountains; and the liquid in
aquifers in the ground are all different forms of water.
More than half of the world's water supply is contained in just nine countries: the United States,
Canada, Colombia, Brazil, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Russia, India, China and Indonesia.
On 22 July 2011, a report described the discovery of a gigantic cloud of water vapour, containing"140 trillion times more water than all of Earth's oceans combined," around a quasar located 12
billion light years from Earth. According to the researchers, the discovery shows that water has been
prevalent in the universe for nearly its entire existence.
Water is a major source of energy on Earth. Electricity obtained by driving a water turbine connected
with a generator is known as hydroelectricity. It is a low-cost, non-polluting, renewable source of
energy. Water is also used in many industrial processes and machines, such as the steam turbine and
heat exchanger, in addition to its use as a chemical solvent.
On September 8, 1935, the first claim of water fuelled car by Charles H. Garrett was reported in The
Dallas Morning News. The car generated hydrogen by electrolysis as can be seen by examining
Garrett's patent, issued that same year. As several claims of driving cars on water were made since
last century its time to have a serious consideration on this topic that is it possible to run an engine
with water? .
Since water is the main cause of existence of life on Earth its constituents Oxygen and Hydrogen
have the same importance. By mass, oxygen is the third-most abundant element in the universe,
after hydrogen and helium. O2 compound is an important part of the atmosphere, and is necessary
to sustain terrestrial life. Hydrogen gas is highly flammable and will burn in air at a very wide range
of concentrations between 4% and 75% by volume.The enthalpy of combustion for hydrogen is 286
kJ/mol:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dallas_Morning_Newshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dallas_Morning_Newshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dallas_Morning_News -
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2 H2(g) + O2(g) 2 H2O(l) + 572 kJ (286 kJ/mol)
Hydrogen gas forms explosive mixtures with air if it is 474% concentrated and with chlorine if it is
595% concentrated. The mixtures spontaneously explode by spark, heat or sunlight. Heat of
Combustion for common fuels is as following Hydrogen 141.9 KJ/g, Gasoline 47KJ/g, Diesel 45 KJ/g
and Ethanol 29.7 KJ/g. Hydrogen is also used to produce the most horrific bombs with its
tremendous power. Hydrogen is a serious consideration for our fuel dilemma. Some people are
worried that hydrogen might be too dangerous. It is true that hydrogen is a very explosive fuel, but
so is natural gas and gasoline.
There are two ways to use hydrogen as fuel to drive our cars. First one is the use offuel cells that
convert chemical energy into electrical energy through a chemical reaction of oxygen and hydrogen
to produce water. A typical fuel cell produces a voltage from 0.6 V to 0.7 V at full rated load. Voltage
decreases as current increases, due to several factors: Activation loss, Ohmic loss and Mass
transport loss. Fuel cells can be combined in series and parallel, where series yields higher voltage
and parallel allows a higher current to be supplied.
(A typical Fuel Cell)
The most popular way is to get hydrogen is electrolysis. The process by which we generate hydrogen
and oxygen from water is called electrolysis. The word "lysis" means to dissolve or break apart, so
the word "electrolysis" literally means to break something apart (in this case water) using electricity.
Electrolysis is very simple - all you have to do is arrange for electricity to pass through some water
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between two electrodes placed in the water. Its as simple as that! The principle of electrolysis was
first formulated by Michael Faraday in 1820.
2 H2O(l) 2 H2(g) + O2(g); E0 = -1.229 V
First law of electrolysis:
In 1832, Michael Faraday reported that the quantity of elements separated by passing an electric
current through a molten or dissolved salt is proportional to the quantity of electric charge passed
through the circuit. This became the basis of the first law of electrolysis:
m = k .q
Second law of electrolysis:
Faraday discovered that when the same amount of electricity is passed through different
electrolytes, the mass of substance liberated/deposited at the electrodes is directly proportional to
their equivalent weights.
As this process consumes large amount of energy the efficiency of this process lies between 50%
and 70%, while maximum theoretical efficiency of electrolysis is between 80% and 94%. The
theoretical maximum considers the total amount of energy absorbed by both the hydrogen and
oxygen. These values refer only to the efficiency of converting electrical energy into hydrogen's
chemical energy. The energy lost in generating the electricity is not included. Dr Daniel G. Nocera a
Professor of MIT is working on a project to improve efficiency of electrolysis with the help of
artificial leafs invented at his lab. His research is mainly inspired by photosynthesis.
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Thus due to the laws of physics energy cannot be created nor be destroyed but can only be
converted from one form to another; also output cannot exceed input in its value because 100%
efficiency is not possible in practical. So electrolysis is not feasible to produce hydrogen in such a
large quantity for combustion to drive an automobile engine. So its impossible to run an automobile
engine on 100% water fuel. Also there are no hydrogen filling stations in your towns so Hybrid Cars
may not get vivid attention at domestic market for at least a decade.
Second way is to use hydrogen as a booster in combustion. Francois Isaac de Rivaz in 1806 designed
the first internal combustion engine, which ran on a hydrogen/oxygen mixture. Paul Dieges patented
in 1970 a modification to internal combustion engines which allowed a gasoline-powered engine to
run on hydrogen. Recently, BMW tested a supercar, powered by a hydrogen ICE (internal
combustion engine), which achieved 187 mph (301 km/h) in tests. At least two of these concepts
have been manufactured.
A hydrogen-boosted engine has much greater fuel combustion efficiency and quality. Invented by
scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and being perfected by auto industry
supplier ArvinMeritor in cooperation with the German automotive engineering firm IAV, this system
may provide a cost-effective alternative to fuel-cell technology and traditional gasoline- and diesel-
combustion engines. It uses an add-on device called a reformer to extract a small amount of
hydrogen from gasoline and inject it into the regular fuel-air mixture in the engine's combustion
chamber, this amount of hydrogen can also be produced using electrolysis, it enables almost twice
the volume of air to ignite with a given quantity of fuel than in a regular internal combustion engine.
This promising new technology saves energy by reducing fuel consumption and also burns fuel more
cleanly. A vehicle running on a mixture of hydrogen, gasoline and air can expect to achieve 20 to 30
percent better mileage than one with a traditional engine. The hydrogen-boosted engine runs
cleanly, boosts fuel efficiency and does not require any special equipment for controlling harmful
nitrogen oxide (NOx) emissions.
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(A Typical Diesel Engine)
The combustion of hydrogen with air can also produce oxides of nitrogen. Although it is only
produced in small quantities, research has shown that the oxides of nitrogen are about 310 times
more harmful for greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, which is the only but most dangerous
disadvantage of this technology.
H2 + O2 + N2 H2O + N2 + NOx
A major cost and environmental advantage of the hydrogen-boosted lean system engine are low
amounts of NOx emissions gasses, hence, complete elimination of the need for external NOx
emissions control. Currently, NOx emissions control is a major cost problem for diesels which use
expensive traps to meet emissions standards. Diesel particulate emissions must also be collected by
a filter that must be periodically regenerated.
Hydrogen-boosted gasoline engines require neither NOx or particulate control filters and require
only a low cost oxidation catalyst to control small amounts of exhaust (unburned hydrocarbons)
formed mostly during engine start-up and early warm up. Additional cuts in emissions control
requirements stem from the engine's ability to use only the clean hydrogen enriched charge during
the cold start phase when 90% of emissions are generated in the emissions test.
It is only the matter of perspective that how far we will go in this field of science in future, its likely
that we'll hear a lot more about the hydrogen-boosted engine in the future. But at present we can
only wash our cars with water instead of fuelling them with it.
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References:
1- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water
2- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrolysis
3- http://www.nmsea.org/Curriculum/7_12/electrolysis/electrolysis.htm
4- http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/thermo/electrol.html
5- http://nocera.mit.edu/Home#hn_Research_Group_of_Daniel_G._Nocera
6- http://science.howstuffworks.com/dictionary/biology-terms/photosynthesis-info.htm
7- http://curiosity.discovery.com/question/hydrogen-boosted-engine-more-efficient
8- http://curiosity.discovery.com/question/hydrogen-boosted-gasoline-engine
9- http://auto.howstuffworks.com/fuel-efficiency/vehicles/how-a-hydrogen-boosted-gasoline-
engine-works.htm
10- http://auto.howstuffworks.com/engine.htm
11- http://auto.howstuffworks.com/diesel.htm