Splitting H2O using Hydrogen as an alternate fuel?

Question

In addition to the previous question about splitting the Hydrogen from Water, some people mentioned electrolysis. My husband thinks that just as fuel and air are compressed to create the movement in pistons in an engine, that Hydrogen in its pure form could be harnessed to do the same thing. One would have to incorporate the electrolysis process into the engine. What do you think of the possibilities of that?

Answer 1

Hi. Electrolysis requires energy in the form of electricity. If you used off-peak power to make your fuel then it could work, but may cost more in electricity than the H2 and O would be worth.

Answer 2

Hmm... Are you suggesting to use hydrogen as the fuel to split water?

This would mean burning the hydrogen with oxygen to generate heat which you would convert to electricity, then use the electricity to split water into hydrogen and oxygen.

In an ideal process you'd just end up with the same amount of hydrogen and oxygen you started with. In a real process you'd get less, because some energy is inevitably wasted. So it wouldn't be a good idea.

Hydrogen production just isn't worth doing unless you have an energy source like wind, hydroelectric, geothermal or solar which doesn't require burning something to get the energy.

Answer 3

Using hydrolysis to produce hydrogen will give you wet hydrogen, which is extremely explosive ( look up the Hindenburg disaster). Producing the volume of hydrogen gas that would be needed to fuel just the cars in the US, would require so much electricity as to render any cost savings moot. Further, while it has been said that hydrogen as fuel would cut the emissions from car exhaust and help stop global warming, most of the electricity produced in the US is either from coal fired plants or nuclear plants. We would have to build many, many more plants to produce the extra electricity, and all that extra production would create as much or more pollution than the car exhaust. So while you can dry the hydrogen produced in this manner, it is actually much more expensive to produce than gasoline, and right now, it is not a viable production method.
There have been trials where engines have used hydrogen gas as a fuel, but the technology is years away from being being fully developed, and even farther away as an economically feasible project.

Answer 4

If you had an atomic pile to proved the current, It would work for spaceflights to the outer planets but the system is not really use-full for a car. I think the best way to go is a hybrid. A bio fuel engine (three cylinder) powers an electric turban that produces high voltage which is then sent to two or more drive motors for propulsion. Excess current is shunted to high capacity batteries for use at lower speeds.A simple computer program would monitor the system and control the throttle when the car(or bus or truck) was not in motion.

Answer 5

Not a bad idea, but in the process you'll be generating oxygen, too. Both H2 and O2 have a high explosion risk, so completing the hydrolysis yourself would be asking for trouble.

Answer 6

it would be a great fuel but too exspensive