Run your car on water!

[bascule]

The water-fueled car is often the basis of stupid perpetual motion schemes. Typically this involves some sort of wacky electrolysis device, ones which are claimed to somehow release hydrogen in a way that has a positive net energy output. After all, that's the only way a car could run on water, right?

 

Well, there's another way. Rather than using an electrical reaction, you can use a chemical reaction. In this case, with boron:

 

http://environment.newscientist.com/channel/earth/energy-fuels/mg19125621.200

 

The basic idea: fill your car with water... and boron. The boron reacts with the water to produce boron oxide and hydrogen gas. The hydrogen gas can then be run through a fuel cell. After it's been passed through the fuel cell the water vapor produced can be heated and then passed through the boron reactor again.

 

The boron oxide produced from the reaction with the water can also be collected and reused... a closed system! You returne the boron oxide to a processing plant to be converted back into boron. Here we've reacted a certifiable point of energy input into the system... the boron oxide is converted to boron through a series of chemical reactions, and the only energy input is... solar! A combination of solar heating and solar electricity generation fuels various processes which allow for a completely closed system to convert the boron oxide back to boron.

 

Here's a diagram of that process:

 

http://environment.newscientist.com/data/images/archive/2562/25621201.jpg

 

The end result is a 100% emission free way to power cars

 

BRILLIANT!

[swansont]

You can do this with aluminum, too.

[YT2095]

in fact it`s cheaper than boron, and the only waste product is Aluminium hydroxide soln.

 

no solar needed anywhere at all.

[swansont]

in fact it`s cheaper than boron, and the only waste product is Aluminium hydroxide soln.

 

no solar needed anywhere at all.

 

What about reprocessing the solution back into alumin(i)um?

[YT2095]

it would take as much, if not more Energy to do that than the H2 liberated would provide.

although it can be used as building material and also in Medicine

[swansont]

it would take as much, if not more Energy to do that than the H2 liberated would provide.

although it can be used as building material and also in Medicine

 

It would take more, to be sure. I'm not looking at this as a perpetual motion machine. (Steorn is grabbing the spotlight on that these days anyway. Technical difficulties. HA!). But from an environmental point of view, as closed-cycle as possible (regarding the materials used), with the energy input being "green," is desireable.

[YT2095]

well the "Exhaust" product is only what you`d eventually get anyway if the Alu was left to "rot" in a landfill somewhere, but tin foil from a baked potato or pie or beer cans etc... could make a tremendous amount of energy that would otherwise be lost and wasted.

 

how many drink a beer while watching the football, that beer can could power that TV with ease! now THERE`S an Incentive

 

I have a smaller version in the Lab, that I feed beer can ring pulls, I get all the hydrogen I want on demand.

[foofighter]

is perpetual motion ruled out by modern physics theories, like FTL travel is generally speaking, or might there be a way for Pmotion?

[YT2095]

it`s currently ruled out, and there`s little likelihood of it ever being ruled IN, unless we have cause to rewrite the basic laws of thermodynamics.

[THX-1138]

Which I've seen mnemonicised for the layman thusly:

 

1^st law: You can't win.

2^nd law: You can't break even.

3^rd law: You can't even get out of the game.

[insane_alien]

actually, you can theoretically break even. at 0K which is impossible to reach.

[smarty_pants]

but what about in australia where we have a drought so we couldn't really waste water on cars

[YT2095]

you`de set up a series of monofilaments to catch drops of Dew overnight.

 

you just can`t please some Folk!