gasoline and pure oxygen for cars?

Question

why don't we use tanks of gasoline and a separate machine capable of isolating pure oxygen to create high powered combustion in chambers to power a traditional style internal combustion engine (obviously modified to handle the greater pressure)?

Answer 1

Nitrous oxide has the effect of providing more oxygen and hence additional fuel can be added with NOX to greatly enhanced power output. But running costs are high. The same would probably be true of oxygen. The potential exists to gain 5x the power by b urning fuel in pure oxygen.
My hunch is that an engine 5x the size will have much lower operating costs than an engine burning fuel in pure oxygen for any given power output.

Answer 2

A good way to burn out pistons and valves really quickly. Almost the all the research that has gone into gasoline engine design and fuel formulation since before the First World War has been to SLOW combustion down, not speed it up. This is the function of raising the octane rating of fuels. Remove atmospheric nitrogen and you get massive problems with detonation. Do you realise just how reactive pure oxygen is?

Do you realise that making oxygen from air consumes energy? Would the extra energy obtained from using pure oxygen (if any, and I doubt there would be much) compensate for or exceed the energy used to produce the oxygen?

Why not avoid the expense of completely redesigning the motor, the expense of the highly specialised materials needed and the expense of making the oxygen and just use ordinary air?

Answer 3

it would cost too much