Water-fuel car unveiled in Japan

[Erazor786]

Well it would seem that beady is spot on with what he is saying, below an excerpt from the youtube video posted above,

"The WES uses a membran (special kind of metal), which splites the H and O's from eachother. This metal must be replaces very often and "recharged" in order to keep the system working. This can will of course not run on water (or hydrogen) alone - no car ever will"

 

[Ph@ntom]

How it Works

http://www.peswiki.com/index.php/Directory:Genepax_Co_Ltd

 

[K]

water will never be taxed

I agree with this claim lol.. Something we actually agree on.. when it comes to transport ..

How can they tax water?? when i can just quite easily have a garden full of water-butts easily purchased from b&q..

Good thing is with all the flooding in the UK at least we can do something with the water..

 

[davidh]

There may well be, but they aren't using the water as fuel. To split up the water into Hydrogen and Oxygen requires energy. No matter where that energy comes from (electrolysis, chemical reaction etc) doesn't matter.

Having got the H2 and O2, they are then converted back into water, releasing the energy. It is a physical impossibility to get more energy out (from the 'burning' of H2 + O2) than you put in (to split it up). This means that somewhere along the way, you've used up energy from an external source. It's a FUNDAMENTAL RULE OF THERMODYNAMICS. In the present case, I reckon they've got a block of reactant within the 'engine' that gets used up over time. As I said above, it's certainly possible that the overall process is very efficient, but the actual 'fuel' is the unknown reactant, not the water.

The water is more of an 'energy transporter/storer'. It's the same with batteries. The chemical reaction inside the battery eventually runs out, and no more energy can be got from it, unless you recharge it, requiring power from an external source.

Energy out <= Energy in.

The ONLY way this could work as claimed is if they've found a way to arrange hydrogen and oxygen so it is at a lower energy than water. AFAIK no such structure exists. Which is why the products of complete combustion are always water and carbon dioxide.

water is h20
and splitting it u would get h2 and o
not h2 o2
h202 is hydrogen peroxide ok if u want blond hair

 

[beady]

water is h20
and splitting it u would get h2 and o
not h2 o2

But what if you split up 2 molecules of water? ..... You get two molecules of hydrogen (2xH2), and one molecule of oxygen (1xO2). Trust me, you don't want free radical O floating around. It'll destroy anything it touches. The 'fuel' products will be hydrogen and oxygen molecules.

I've had a look at the websites linked above, and at best, they've made a new kind of fuel cell. THIS IS NOT THE SAME AS MAKING A CAR THAT RUNS ON WATER. It still requires some form of external energy input. A traditional hydrogen fuel cell requires a supply of hydrogen and oxygen, which is then turned into water. They claim that they can 'make' this fuel 'in situ' from water. You just can't do that without supplying some energy.

Judging by the companies website though, I reckon it's a scam. There's supposedly '25 years research' gone into this, but the website is completely devoid of useful information.

 

[pipsqueaker]

but if they did go fast, crashes would be nearly always fatal as theyd be fast movinh bombs

That's what I was thinking. A suicide bomber's dream machine!!

 

[fes_786]

That's what I was thinking. A suicide bomber's dream machine!!

pmsl

i already know u can split water to get brown gas which people inject into the air intake to fuel cleaner combustion which in turn gives u about 5 or 10 mpg more.

 

[Rat]

another simlar story here
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7456141.stm