Earth Talk: Can cars run on water?
26.08.09
Pricey EarthTalk: I’ve heard that cars can be modified to run on water. How is this possible? —Diane McMorris, Rockport, Maine
There are a million of online marketing offers of kits that will convert your car to “run on water,” but these should be viewed skeptically. These kits, which add to the car’s engine, use electrolysis to split the water (H2O) into its component molecules, hydrogen and oxygen — and then throw in the resulting hydrogen into the engine’s combustion process to power the car along with the gasoline. Doing this, they say, makes the gasoline blaze cleaner and more completely, thus making the engine more efficient.
But experts say the energy equation on this species of system is not, in reality, efficient at all. For one, the electrolysis process uses energy, such as electricity in the home or the on-board car battery, to direct. By the laws of nature, then, the system uses more energy making hydrogen than the resulting hydrogen itself can provision, according to Dr. Fabio Chiara, research scientist in alternative combustion at the Center for Automotive Research at Ohio Nation University.
Source: Ridgefield Press