I was just browsing around and came across this...

http://www.water-4-fuel.com/

i know its not quite April fools but, is it for real?I'm not that technologically minded but know hydrolysis of water would produce hydrogen, but surely the current you would need would be huge...not a car battery?

Yes, hydrogen powered cars are real.
No, I wouldn't recommend paying any amount to purchase information over the Internet.

I saw a film about a guy in the Philippines who has been running his car on Hydrogen since 1969.

yeah, i have seen hydrogen powered cars but converting water to hydrogen from a car battery looks a little far fetched.

I wouldn't even dream of shelling out for something lije this...looks a bit like a scam to me, just wondering what people thought and i wasn't missing out.

Here's a site, http://www.fuelfromh2o.com, that shows some results. I'm going to mess around with my own some day. Basically the idea is to use the hydrogen and oxygen to supplement the gasoline, not replace it, giving an increase in power for less fuel. Seems quite plausible to me.

but surely from that small amount of water there would not be that much hyrogen produced.

complete combustion of hydrogen produces 286KJ, and one mole of hydrogen is being derived from one mole of water (molecular mass-18...i think). then if you look at the container he says it holds a quart, which is about a litre i think so 1000g, meaning there are 1000/18=55.6 mols of h20. This would if all is converted to hydrogen and burnt only produce 15,901.6 KJ. Which equates to 3798.9kWh.

Then there are in theory 37 kWh's in 1 gallon of gasoline. therefore the litre of water equates to 102.7 gallons of gasoline.............I stand corrected, in theroy i guess there is quite a lot of energy in the water, assuming my maths and chemistry is correct?

I really don't understand the numbers behind it all, but I believe, in technical terms, that there's a sh*t load of hydrogen in water. The rate of production through electrolysis isn't huge, but it's sufficient to be a useful supplement. This is why I want to play with it myself, make my own little generator and see what happens.

Here's a video of Daniel Dingel, the guy from the Philippines that I mentioned earlier. It's in English and it's interesting to watch.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=UVhXrvCCILw

This guy claimed that his VW powered Sand Rail ran on water but never let anyone get close enough to really inspect it.

you kind of wonder why...then it says it failed a scientific test as part of a court case over making false claims. you kind of wonder about the truth behind stories such as this as if they were real, the inventor could patent it and would make a fortune, despite this there they still are trying to suck people in on the internet.

I do renewable energy research as a living and all of this is bogus in my scientific opinion. Water is the end product of burning hydrogen. If you start from water and then end up with water, where did all the energy come from to power your car.

Water does contain hydrogen, but it takes energy to strip the hydrogen from the water. In a perfect world, you would get that energy back when you combust the hydrogen back to water. To be able to somehow extract additional energy and end up with the same product you started out with would essentially be a perpetual motion machine. All of our energy problems would cease to exist. It might even lead to the demise of the universe if it keeps growing and outputting more energy each time the water recycles.

By the way, gasoline and diesel contain more hydrogen than water. about half the energy from those fuels comes from hydrogen. The other half comes from carbon. So, when you really think about it, we are already living the "hydrogen economy".

Actually, every fuel we use except nuclear power is really solar power several layers removed. The energy in coal, oil, and hydropower all originate from the sun.

I've got the garden hose going into my car now! I'll tell y'all how much faster it is (after an extensive test drive) in a couple hours...

In a nutshell it's all about efficiency isn't it? What you're describing is 100% efficiency, whereas I would suggest that splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen, and then using those to supplement the existing fuel would increase the efficiency from not very to a little bit better. And a little bit better is, well a little bit better.

the current problem being is it is not possible to get energy from nothing, according to the law of physics "energy cannot be created or destroyed only changed in state". more energy would be required to perform hydrolysis than would be the yield of such an process.

so even for this so called supplement energy from the battery is talked about, but this energy comes directly form the combustion of hydrocarbons so really you would be using more fuel. its the same as running the car with all the lights, heaters etc. on, the car simply does not go as far on the same amout of fuel as some of it is being used for conversion to operating electrical processes. so using fuel to produce electricity to perform hydrolysis in a system that is not 100% efficient is not going to make your car any more efficient.

A catalyst could help but only if it aids in the breakdown of water to hydrogen so less energy is needed than is produced in combustion and this is not only not available but against the law of physics. if this problem can be overcome the inventor is going to be a very rich man ( or woman i guess) indeed!

The system I've looked at does indeed use a catalyst to improve the production rate of the hydrogen.

I don't claim to understand the total efficiency, or lack thereof, of the internal combustion engine, nor of the amount of energy required for hydrolysis of water, but I do know that you can split water into hydrogen and oxygen, you can feed these into an internal combustion engine, and you can measure the before and after effects. I'm not a blind believer in anything, but I'm willing to give this one a shot to see what happens, if anything.

I've split ordinary tap water with nothing other than a 9V battery as a kid, (25 to 30 years ago I guess). I'm sure a car battery would give much better results. Not sure what production rate you could realistically achieve, or what rate you would need though.

Just a side note:
when an alternator or generator is producing power its resistance (to spin) increases the more amps it makes. thus requiring more energy and more fuel.
Running your electrical systems on hi makes your fuel economy decrease.

and some other info:
The more I researched this topic the more I supported hybrid vehicles.
Big auto manufacturers are still holding back big time. If someone went with a diesel hybrid and started with a more powerful IC engine platform we could get mileage in the low hundreds easy.
Id like to see a mod for Hi torque electric motors going into existing autos...
check out EVs electric vehicles. they require no gas and you take the engine out of the car replacing it with electronics and one big damn electric motor.
The drawbacks are Price and range potential. It costs a ton to do and they dont go real far.
Id like to see also, modern fuel systems go into small engines powering generators powering the electronics.
Note that electric is far less efficient at highway speeds.

Fun stuff to think about!
I suggest you research it all for yourself.
If I see the potential here and I am considered by my peers as a numbskull why are we still paying so much for energy...
WIND for the WIN! (in the home) Deisel Electric Locomotion for the WIN! (in the auto)

Check out permanent magnets in generators and the "Bedini circuit".



P.S. Stan Meyer was murdered, whether for his resonance frequency water splitting tech or some other "business" unknown.

I sense a challenge for the summer.

My brother has been working on a hydrogen power system for some time. He does have a good website started that is worth taking a look at.

http://hydrogenboostnow.com/


The guys system you linked to in the first post does not really make any gas so it is useless.


The idea is just standard electrolysis and the gas is burned in the engine. This does not break any rules, it just makes the gasoline burn better. You have to adjust the O2 sensor to make the mixture leaner.

There is a high efficiency system that looks promising but I need to see proof before I say anything.

The parts for a large booster are pricey with only a few kinds of stainless steel being OK to use and the high power solid state relays are hard to find.

I have a 2008 chevy truck that may get a booster for testing soon. If it does well I will post the millage numbers.

Thanks for the link! This is exactly the kind of thing I've been looking at doing this summer.

I have 2 words "Hydrogen embrittlement"

There was a guy a few years back working on a setup and his motor started to fall apart

I have also seen some say that its a non issue - I would like to see tests

Why not just inject pure oxygen to make the burn more efficient and get more out of your gasoline

@will1384: Inject pure O2. Well, the problem there is that you've got to STORE the O2 then, and it's pretty volatile stuff. The inherent danger of having pure O2 in a regular car is staggering. Also, if you put that O2 in contact with the metal of your engine, it would immediately react. On top of that, the higher the concentration of O2 in the air/fuel mixture, the lower the flash point of thae gasoline. It doesn't take much extra O2 before that flash point drops below the minimum operating temperature of the engine, at which point, fuel ignition becomes impossible.

Although, people actually DO something similar to this. It's called Nitrous Oxide. N2O is about 35% O2 when it's broken down, which is greater than the general atmospheric concentration of about 20%. N2O is also reasonably stable, so it doesn't dissociate until the fuel starts to burn, keeping it relatively safe. (N2O works as an anaesthetic in the same way, hyperoxygenating the bloodstream) The other thing here to remember is that the extra O2 doesn't make the fuel burn more efficiently, it burns more fuel -- that's how it makes more power.

As stated before, you can't get something for nothing. It takes as much power to dissociate the H2 and O2 from water as you can possibly get out of it, in which case, you might as well just use an electric motor.


Exactly. Small correction though. Geothermal power is not solar in nature, it's left over from the gravitational collapse of the matter that makes up the planet.

Lol. Yeah, didn't think of geothermal power.

Let's go one step further. Since the sun's energy comes from nuclear reactions (fusion or fission?) every fuel we use (except geothermal?) comes from nuclear energy.

I heard a theory once that the earth's center is not made of iron (diffusing over time to the center due to gravitation) but of uranium to its higher density, thus purifying it and causing nuclear reactions in there.

Don't know if it's true or not. Kinda makes sense to me, though.

Oh come on phutton! Didn't you ever watch The Core? We've already been to the center of the earth for crying out loud. Errr . . . that WAS a true story, wasn't it?

"Uranium? Iron? Shit . . . it looks like Lime Jell-O!!!"

Click to view attachment

Not only that, but have you watched the documentary "Sunshine" where they went to the sun to restart it with some huge bomb thing? At least I think it was a documentary.

I was trying to say something along the lines of using an oxygen bottle to inject a metered amount into the air that gets sucked into the motor
already - but yea nothing but pure oxygen oxides / rusts metal quick like a oxyacetylene torch

But yea FIRE

Even "small metered amounts' is extremely hazardous.

In high school, we used to have some old welding equipment, where the regulator didn't FORCE you to turn the acetylene on first. Some idiot lit up the O2. The result fortunately didn't seriously hurt anyone, but it did send the O2 tank through a cinderblock wall. It karoomed off of a car, and through one wall of the dumpster outside. The other wall of the dumpster stopped it fortunately. (Yeah, we got new regulators after that. Go figure.)

The problem is that as soon as any high concentration of O2 hits the fuel, the flash point of the fuel lowers. It really doesn't take much to lower the flash point to below the engine's operating temperature, which means that the fuel will be burning as it's taken into the cylinder.

Again, this is why N2O is used. N2O doesn't react with the fuel at all. It is only after the fuel starts to burn that it dissociates, which adds the extra oxygen to burn more fuel. To use pure O2, you would have to stop well before you got the same benefit that can be had from an N2O charge.

<paul walker>NOS!!!!</paul walker>

It seems the conserving energy theroy went out of the window and now everyone seems to be agreeing that NOS is the way forward.

could be interesting, all cars coming with a tank of NOS as standard!

I'm being completely facetious.

N2O is simply a way to add more oxygen, and therefore burn more fuel. It's certainly not a practical energy source by any means, and doesn't get us away from gasoline/diesel.

For a water powered car, it would be far more practical to consider a hydrogen fuel source. Don't carry the O2 on-board, get that from atmosphere. The hydrogen fuel would not be created on-board the car, it would be done at fuel production plants, where large scale (probably atomic) energy could be used to produce the hydrogen gas, and compress it for delivery and storage. Hydrogen is, of course, dangerous, but so is gasoline. It's been said that if gasoline were developed today, it would never be approved as a fuel source, since it's too dangerous. Hydrogen is actually safer, though public opinion is the opposite.

By the way, BMW has developed a hydrogen fueled car so this isn't science fiction at this point. This isn't a hydrogen fuel cell car, which is basically an electric car with better batteries, this is an internal combustion engine using hydrogen and atmospheric oxygen as fuel.

This is a clean, viable fuel alternative. It's safer than propane as well, because it's lighter than air, so it won't pool at low points waiting for a flash, it'll rise and disperse. It's only inherent danger is that it's a compressed gas when stored.

I was just messing around, I know NOS is not a viable alternative to petroleum derivatives its just amazing wiht all the minds on here how the topics change so quickly and and ot obscure things! Keeps things interesting i guess!

Actually, I am really impressed with the BMW. It will run on hydrogen, but will also run on gasoline, so until there are H2 fueling stations everywhere, it's still usable.

Ahem,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLKExuHlQMQ
nuff said...

so...how much energy does it take to extract enough hydrogen to power the cars?

I know high capacity li-ion batteries are being developed for future hybrid vehicles..I think they use the older ni-mh right now...

it depends on how much hydrogen from how much water but at present...a lot, more energy is taken to break the water into hydrogen than will be produced by the products of electrolysis...at the moment anyway.

For some reason I remember something about Ethanol plants being used as a source for hydrogen. Cant remember whether for the use in hydrogen fuel cell combustion or electric. I thought the hydrogen was for fueling a "battery" with the byprouduct water.
Just saw this one while looking for a previously seen video.

This will always be true. Since there is no 100% efficient energy transfer, it will always take more energy to convert a stable compound like water into it's component elements than you will recover by taking the elements and recombining them. Getting past this would, in effect mean perpetual motion, since you could convert water to hydrogen and oxygen, burn them, and end up with water. Repeat.

The point being that it's a renewable resource -- well, as long as there's energy to do it with, and environmentally clean.

For where to get that energy from... There are many untapped sources of energy available, with what being lacking is a way to get that energy where and when we need it.

Ultimately, all forms of energy on this planet come from 3 sources. Geothermal, nuclear and solar.

Fossil fuels are stored solar energy, but that energy was stored over long periods of time, and a long time ago.

Nuclear power can be used to create the hydrogen fuel from water. It's not practical to have a nuclear powered vehicle (Well, not until we build a Mr. Fusion, anyway) but an isolated nuclear plant making a transportable fuel works well.

Direct solar power can be used, too. Not so convenient to use direct solar power in a car that might need to operate at night, or on heavily cloudy days, but again, that's what the stored fuel is for. Similarly indirect solar power (wind generators, for example) may not be reliable when and where you want it, or the generation method may not be conveniently portable.

There are many places that we can get power from that isn't necessarily useful where and when we can get it, but can be used to create fuel for whenever we need it.

Hydrogen is a reasonably compact way to store energy.

At present, any power that we produce that is greater than the amount of input power which we get from the Sun is ultimately going to be limited to stored reserves.

Thank you for that homage to back to the future. Im always trying to incorporate that into alt fuels and energy conversations.

This fact is often over looked by all of the "tell us what kind of energy to use" crowd. We now have a PC test to determine if the energy we use is proper, in fact how good of a person you are is now based on what kind of energy you "believe" in. It is really quite strange when you think about it.

SupraGuy If your into hot rodding at all then you know of Crower Camshafts. They have been making hot rod parts for around 40 years.

Well old man Crower is still alive and had a great idea on a new way to use water injection in a normal 4 cycle engine. What is in the fine print is the 40% gas millage improvement!

I have looked at a lot of fuel millage systems over the years but this is still the simplest and most straight forward system I have seen. All you would need is a dual fuel injector system.

This is a link to the water injection system, there is a move somewhere too.

http://www.damninteresting.com/?p=467

There is no real reason half or more of all the autos in the USA could not be getting 30 to 40% better fuel millage. The effect this would have on the output of CO2 would be a millions times more than the silly ethanol fuel idea or the silly CFL lamps or lots of other feel good but will make no real difference ideas.

But instead of looking for engineering solutions we look to people like Al Gore who has no idea how to make anything work. I am not getting on a bus or bicycle to try to save the world.

There is no real tricks here you are just using the heat that would go out the tail pipe. The amount of watter would be less the the gas and the effect of water in the engine is already not a problem. What most people don't know is that when gas burns it makes H2O and CO2. (both non harmful by the way) All engines have a water "problem" the way they deal with it is they run the engine at over 212deg to boil out the water from the oil. The temp may say 185 but this is the water temp not the crank shaft or oil temp.

There is also no need for distilled water, a chrome topped piston would resist any galvanic effect from the water. NASCAR has been doing this for 25 years. it is nothing new.

I love the idea of a engine that would need no radiator! Without the need for water cooling a engien could be made way simpler.

If you do a patent search for water injection systems there are a lot of similar systems out there.


This is a never tried mass transit system that just makes too much sense for our stupid government officials to look at. Remember Trains are the answer! Just like in 1890.


http://www.skytran.net/

This is simply amazing!

I want to live in a city that has this type of light rail system. Ottawa, Ontario has just committed to spending 4 Billion CDN to build it's light rail system (decades too late) which includes boring a tunnel under the downtown core for an underground subway system.


http://www.cbc.ca/canada/ottawa/story/2008...nel-080203.html

The problems with trains in a urban environment is they have to stop to board passengers, thus making everyone else wait for the unloading and loading. For long hauls between major population points trains are fairly efficient but to service inside of cities it is a bad idea. The sad thing here is city planers know that the light rails systems are vary inefficient but they are afraid of new ideas.

In Phoenix we are almost done with an over 100 million dollar light rail system that when finished will average 17 MPH!

Yes, you can beat the train with a bicycle!

The small car idea could be applied to a ground level system too, many small computer controlled electric cars with auto track changing. Electric cars on a steel track would have much lower friction than regular cars and rubber tires, but that would require someone in government being smart and taking risk.

I wouldn't hold my breath.

In todays world risk is not allowed so without risk there is no reward.

Electric cars will be the last straw in the train V auto debate that has been going on for the last 50 years.

Because electric cars are much more efficient, if you look at the time/energy wasted by a light rail system the electric car will win in every way. Give the government about 10 to 15 years to study the problem and they might give up the train idea.

Most likely they will give up on the train idea just because they are broke from all the welfare and health care systems they need to pay for.

The Chevy Volt is worth looking at too.

http://gm-volt.com/

@av: Any engine builder is going to know about Crower Cams. They've been a staple of the hi-po engine industry for a long time.

There are some issues with water injection that are difficult to get around though.

1. It's one more storage tank that you have to carry in the car, plus it's heavy.
2. Most water carries mineral contaminants to some degree, which tend to silt up control systems over time. This makes for a greatly increased maintenance schedule, and a need for large amounts of overdesign. Also, unlike the cooling system, which carries anticorrosive compounds, water tends to be unkind to ferrous metals, such as the engine block, intake and exhaust manifolds, and exhaust system.
3. Winter. Water injection relies on relatively pure water with no volatile and particularly no flammable compounds. Antifreeze agents are typically alcohol based, so they burn in a manner that is unpredictable with gasoline, and generally end up producing nasty residues which destroy catalytic converters, and often damage valves and cylinders. Anyone who's had a head gasket fail on them generally finds that they have trouble with the O2 sensor and/or catalytic converter shortly afterwards.

Light rail transit as a primary transportation for commuters is a poor solution, however, when used properly as a method to get from major transit stations to other major transit stations, it can be very effective. The Japanese have been using these systems to great effect, and city life there would litteraly fall apart without the trains.

my post lost all its formating

[quote name='SupraGuy' post='282611' date='Apr 28 2008, 01:20 PM']@av: Any engine builder is going to know about Crower Cams. They've been a staple of the hi-po engine industry for a long time.

There are some issues with water injection that are difficult to get around though.

1. It's one more storage tank that you have to carry in the car, plus it's heavy.

RE: If the power stroke from the water injection gives even half the amount of pressure of gas, then the weight of the water would not be much different than having to carry gas.

I don't think 50lbs of water would slow a 2000lb car down much. We don't know how much water needs to be injected either. If it was a small amount then the amount of water might be fairly small but each time you inject water your not injecting $3.38 gallon gas.

1. Most water carries mineral contaminants to some degree, which tend to silt up control systems over time. This makes for a greatly increased maintenance schedule, and a need for large amounts of overdesign. Also, unlike the cooling system, which carries anticorrosive compounds, water tends to be unkind to ferrous metals, such as the engine block, intake and exhaust manifolds, and exhaust system.

RE: I understand that water will erode almost anything over time but a engine already is a water engine. When gas is burned it makes water vapor and CO2. Lucky for us we burn the fuel so inefficiently that the layer of carbon on the parts helps to protect the metal from corrosion and heat. The water will wash this away and a hard coating would be needed. This is not a expenctive mod.

Steel is not a problem in a high heat water environment but aluminum is. All the aluminum parts would need to be hard anodized . There is a lot of ways to do this.

The mineral content might prove to be a hassle but so is carbon build up. RO water would be fine and many places have low mineral content water. I have run a engine for over a year with a blown head gasket and there was no mineral build up in the combustion chamber. It was the only cylinder that looked like new. We used just tap water in the car because of the leak and we have really hard water in Phoenix.

1. Winter. Water injection relies on relatively pure water with no volatile and particularly no flammable compounds. Antifreeze agents are typically alcohol based, so they burn in a manner that is unpredictable with gasoline, and generally end up producing nasty residues which destroy catalytic converters, and often damage valves and cylinders. Anyone who's had a head gasket fail on them generally finds that they have trouble with the O2 sensor and/or catalytic converter shortly afterwards.

RE: The catalytic converter is one of the worlds dumbest inventions! It is required by law to have one and it must function so if you lean out the air fuel ratio then it will go out and you will be breaking the law. There are many lean burn engine that might have been a good idea but the government required converter makes them illegal.

The water injection idea would have to be done by one of the major auto makers. The need for two injectors in the head and sequential timing is not a easy DIY project. The converter would need to go. but I have been saying this ever since they fuel injected the cars.

Water vapor will not effect a O2 sensor. There may be a need for fairly clean water but this is not that hard. As with most any system I have seen their is more parts and more expense. If the potential of 30% to 40% MPG could be proven then perhaps I could send my CFL bulbs back to China and watch the price of gas drop to new lows.

I have watched for 30 years the auto companies do almost nothing to make a true lean burn system into production. (My dad has had a few gas station and I have pumped my fair share, way back when) I like this idea because all it does is make a old system more efficient.

There are a lot of vapor systems, even a vapor gas diesel system by old SmokeyYunick. It takes some time to figure this one out.

http://schou.dk/hvce/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smokey_Yunick

If I could have had two Dad's Smokey would have been my choice for number two



3) Light rail transit as a primary transportation for commuters is a poor solution, however, when used properly as a method to get from major transit stations to other major transit stations, it can be very effective. The Japanese have been using these systems to great effect, and city life there would litteraly fall apart without the trains.


RE: I just hate putting my transportation needs 100% in the hands of the government. Every time a see a operator strike and no one can get anywhere or some movie footage of a bunch of scum beating the crap out of some poor commuter, I'm glad I don't have to be in a can with 20 thugs.

Individual transportation is freedom of movement and just plain freedom. I'm willing to pay a small price for freedom.

You save the world by making better systems, like we always have, not by giving up you freedom.

Well...

Water injection doesn't take the place of gas. It takes the place of air and gas, which is 14.7 (or thereabouts) parts air to 1 part gas, by mass. As a result, you actually need to inject far more water than the amount of gas that you can save. Mostly, though, this is done to get more power out of the same amount of gas, which can help reduce fuel consumption if you don't want to increase the overall output of the engine. For the average commuter/grocery getter vehicle, this would be adequate.

For the mass. Gasoline has a specific density of 0.739, meaning that 1 litre of gasoline weighs 739 grams. 1 litre of water weighs 1000 grams, so for the same volume, the water weighs 16% more. This in itself isn't the entirety of the problem though. A water tank can't be made like a gas tank, the material has to be protected agains corrosion, and it's an additional tank that you have to keep full. This is the big problem, particularly if it has to be filled with distilled water or, as seems to be the case with most water injection systems, a 50/50 mix of water and methanol, that still means that you can't just fill it from a garden hose, so it's more maintenance that the owner/driver has to do.

As for water vapor in the combustion process: This is entirely a different matter, and on an entirely different scale. Per combustion round, you are burning only a few miligrams of air -- even fewer of gasoline which in turn produces even fewer miligrams of water. This is entirely different than the systems which will be holding water full time, or getting blasts of LIQUID water.

Quick math.... For my engine, 2954cc displacement. Assuming 100% volumetric efficiency (possible only through forced aspiration) each cylinder is 492cc, which holds 0.0593 grams of air, and a proportionate 0.00404 grams of gasoline. Given that about 80% of the air is nitrogen, which remains relatively inert that leaves a combustion mass of about 0.0159g of combustion mass. CO2 masses much more than H2O, having atomic masses of (about) 44 and 18 respectively. The formula for stoichiometric octane combustion is 2 C8H18 + 25 O2 -> 16 CO2 + 18 H2O. From this, we say that for every 288g of H2O produced, we get 704g of CO2. This means that 29% of our combustion mass becomes water vapor, so that's about 0.00462g of water vapor per combustion cycle.

Hmmm... Water injection systems as they're used in turbocharged applications are mostly for cylinder cooling, and run about 4:1 fuel/water. This only increases the total mass of water vapor by about 25%, however, their use is to increase the amount of fuel that can be burned safely.

As for catalytic converters... I think you should look at what they actually do. 14.7:1 is the CLEANEST burn for gasoline. If you lean the mixture out more, you get nasty nitrogen compounds in the exhaust, plus you increase the combustion temperature, which is dangerous for the engine. Of course if you make the mixture richer, you get more unburned hydrocarbons in the exhaust. The catalytic converter eliminates the NOx and HC in the exhaust for cleaner air, which is a good thing. Yes, you have to have one, and for good reason. It really does help.

Water vapor isn't the problem with the O2 sensor, nor with the catalytic converter. The residues from an alchohol based antifreeze agent in the water are. A quick read on water injection indicates that some systems use a 50% methanol based mix for water injection. Alcohol isn't a regular hydrocarbon, it's an organic compound, which has it's own set of combustion byproducts which DOES affect an O2 sensor, and particularly a catalytic converter. It also screws with the air/fuel ratio calculations, though most engine ECUs can compensate. This is the reason that menthanol enhanced fuels work, however, they DO affect fuel injection systems over time. Methanol enhanced fuels also contain other chemicals specifically to deal with these residues, some more effectively than others.

Methanol enhanced fuels are permitted only in certain aircraft, for example, ones where the engine can handle the byproducts properly, and it does not have an adverse effedt on performance. In the USA, the FAA and in Canada, the MOT have to certify the aircraft and the fuel before it can be pumped, and many airport fuelling stations will refuse to cary the enhanced fuel for fear of liability if it's pumped into a non-certified aircraft.

Lean burn may work for the grocery getter, but I've taken apart enough engines with pitted or outright melted pistons to have seen the adverse effects. Long-term the engine WILL be less reliable, it must be, since the lean fuel mixture is hotter. You mentioned large amounts of carbon deposits. This isn't necessarily the regular case for combustion. Fuel burning properly at stoich mixtures does not leave carbon deposits. This only happens when the mixture is overly rich. For most cars, this happens at 2 times: When the car is idling, particularly when warming up. Fuel injection systems will run the engine rich at these times, as it produces a more stable idle. (During warm-up particularly.) The second is at wide open throttle. This happens because this is when the engine is working its hardest. A rich mixture keeps the cylinder temperatures manageable at high loads and RPM. Also, a slightly rich mix (about 12.5:1) produces more power than the stoich mix does. Performance engines are generally tuned to about 11.5:1 to 10:1 for wide open throttle mixtures in order to keep from damaging the engine. (Wide open throttle does not usually produce excess carbon, since the increase in heat actually removes accumulated deposits.) All that crap in the engine comes from excessive idling.

Your comment on public transportation doesn't make that much sense to me. Even busses or trains need fuel to run anyway, so it's entuirely beside the point.

Better systems can also include better mass transit. If mass transit here were better, I wouldn't take my car to work, much as I enjoy driving it.

SupraGuy:

This link explains the vapor engine idea better than I can.

http://franzh.home.texas.net/lean.html

Is is a good explanation of the Smokey type of engine that is over 20 years old. Staying at the Stoichiometric Ratio of 14.7 to 1 instead of adding a turbo and going to a leaner 18 to 22 to 1 has put billions of tons of CO2 into the air.

Look at the CO2 levels at 1.4 Lambda ratio!

I have seen other charts that had a better curve for the HC levels.

Chevy had a lean burn idea called HCCI that looks promising but without a turbo they wont get to truly lean levels. I found one place that said the HCCI is running at 30 to 1! I would call that lean burn.


http://www.egmcartech.com/2007/08/24/gm-in...e-fuel-economy/

GM has a good idea but my point is that it is really a old idea.


The easy way to control combustion temps is not to use a EGR valve but to inject water that will take the heat and turn it into steam which will helps to push the piston down.

With a 6 cycle water injected engine like the Crowler, you could have total control of cylinder temps and if you add a turbo then you have control of the compression ratio. With control of both you could go to a 20 to one air fuel ratio and still have the cylinder cooled every third or forth time to control the block temp.

With a 20 to 1 F/A ratio and water going in every second or forth pop to cool the engine you talking some real gas millage.

And no I'm not getting on a train.

Why converts suck.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article1658158.ece

“The amount of sulphur coming out of individual exhausts is lower than previously. However, it is no longer coming out as sulphur dioxide but these other sulphur compounds,” Dr Watts said. “Add to this the fact that there are now so many more exhaust pipes out there, and you see the problem.”

Hydrogen sulphide, a colourless gas that is responsible for the characteristic foul odour of rotten eggs and stink bombs can shut down several critical systems in the body. Carbon disulphide is a neurotoxin and a carcinogen. It can be dangerous to human health at high doses.

As fror the first comment about paying for plans. Mythbusters already had a special on internet deals that promise to run off of hydrogen conversions or "boosters". they were not able to boost there mpg's with any setting they tried. it was interesting to see them explore the REAL uses of hydrogen technology though

Ethanol solves most of these problems. BTW, I did the math for making a gallon of ethyl alcohol based on white sugar, zeolites and solar evap...the price per gallon at grocery-store prices for sugar? ~$3!

Thats why we must grow our own sugar cane to fend of the ridiculous prices the greedy sugar companies are charging us.

Just wait to see the price when that sugar company in florida closses shop when their land is returned to the everglades.
They claim it won't cause a price jump.

A 100 times increase in the use of sugar just might cause the price to increase. Cane sugar is picked by hand by people that are almost slaves.

Food for fuel, the more you look at it's ability to scale and the full environmental impact from water usage to field runoff to all the fertilizer used, Nuclear, Solar, and Wind power and other systems start to look a lot better.