is there a possibility that water could be used as an engine fuel?

Answer 1

Water as a engine fuel is one of the oldest penny stock scams there is.

Water is not a source of chemical energy.

Many people are confused by this. The answer above by pushstroke is a good example.

Pushstroke uses the example of steam.

The source of the energy is the fuel that is used to boil the water and turn it into steam, not the steam itself.

The steam is merely a means to transfer the energy to the piston in the engine.

Other misconceptions are that since water is made up of hydrogen and oxygen all we have to do is separate the hydrogen from the oxygen and burn the hydrogen and...

VOILA! WE GET FREE ENERGY!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Unfortunately it does not work that way.

It takes far more energy to separate the hydrogen from the oxygen than you get back when you burn the hydrogen.

One way of splitting the hydrogen is through a process that is called electrolysis. This process uses electrical energy.

The currently available equipment that you can buy off the shelf works at approximately 60 to 70% efficiency, depending on how fast you want the reaction to run.

The faster the reaction, the lower the efficiency.

With this equipment running at 70% efficiency it requires approximately 50 kilowatt hours of electricity to produce an amount of hydrogen with the energy equivalent of one gallon of gasoline.

If you "burn" that amount of hydrogen in a fuel cell to produce electricity you will get approximately 15 to 18 kilowatt hours of electricity back, depending on the efficiency of the fuel cell.

Again, the faster you run the reaction in the fuel cell, the lower the efficiency.

Since you only get 15 to 18 kilowatt hours of electricity back for every 50 kilowatt hours that you spend, this clearly is not a way to create energy.

Electrolysis has been proposed as a means to store electrical energy when you have excess generating capacity.

For example in France they get over 80% of their electricity from nuclear power plants.

You do not just start and stop a nuclear power plant. The plant runs 24 hours per day.

At night you have a huge excess of generating capacity.

The French use some of that excess generating capacity at night to produce hydrogen electrolytically. The hydrogen is then used to fuel vehicles such as buses during the day.

As you can see this is a rather ineficient process because you only get back 15 to 18 kilowatt hours of electricity for every 50 kilowatt hours that you spend.

However when you have excess generating capacity it is better to get something back rather than nothing.

The other way that has been proposed to get energy out of water is to use the hydrogen in a fusion reaction.

A fusion reaction is essentially a nuclear reaction. It is the source of energy in our sun and the hydrogen bomb.

The hydrogen bomb is a very powerful nuclear weapon. It is far more powerful than the Uranium or Plutonium nuclear weapons.

Unfortunately we have never been able to figure out how to contain a fusion reaction. We have been trying to figure that out for the past 50 years or so.

So far we have been unsuccessful.

We probably will not be able to figure out how to contain a fusion reaction for at least the next 50 to 100 years, if then.


Unfortunately until we figure out how to contain a fusion reaction, water is not a source of energy as an engine fuel or for any other purpose.

If someone calls you offering you a penny stock in a company that says they have an amazing new technology that uses water as a fuel, hang up on them, bacause it is a scam.
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Answer 2

Water can not by itself be used as a fuel, but it can be used as a fuel extender.
2 examples: If you run an internal combustion engine in a vehicle on 100% pure ethyl alcohol and measure the miles per gallon you will get slightly less mpg than you do with normal gasoline. This is if you are able to adjust the vacuum of the intake to compensate for the different vapor pressure of the fuel. If you take that same amount of alcohol and mix it with about 95% of a gallon of pure water. The mix must be adjusted so the humidity in the air will not drive it beyond the burn point. The overall mix is 50/50 but you must keep it less than that to compensate for the water contained in normal air. This mixture containing the very same gallon of alcohol will now take you about 260% further than the one gallon of alcohol did by itself.
The problem is the temperatures inside the engine becomes much hotter than can be tolerated by an engine designed to burn straight gasoline.
The same also works when burning gasoline but because the water will not mix with the gasoline fuel it must be added to the engine by an additional injector that atomizes the water into the cylinder along with the fuel. Each gallon becomes like 2 and you still get 30% better on each gallon.
Technology owned by Mobil Oil I think. Been around for 20 years or more. They do not want you to know about it. If you want to find more like this. Go to the library and search some of the patents help by Mobil.
There is a great problem during cold weather of fog in back of your car. It will be required to recapture the water and use it again to prevent this visibility issue. A 30 mpg car becomes a 78 mpg car. If this is used in a hybrid system it is possable to be 150 mpg car.

Answer 3

like some said the Stanley steamer used a boiler but did not BURN water. yes you can it's called water hydrolysis to separate the hydrolyzed pair from the oxygen to burn or use in a fuel cell.
problem:

it takes as much energy to separate as you get out in a fuel cell not counting losses in efficiency about 85%. a hydrogen engine is even less @35%.

you have to used distilled water there can be no minerals in the water as this will quickly destroy the electroliis elements.

the simplest solution is go e-100

as far as fuel cells go ethanol is the way to go as it has 5 hydrolised pairs easily stripped but with an organic acid as a waste that needs to be nuetralized.

Answer 4

No, never, not possible. I wish people would stop asking this question. Water cannot be used as fuel. Water can not be used as fuel. WATER CANNOT BE USED AS FUEL.

Steam engines do not use water as a fuel. They use something else that burns. This is the fuel, not water.

Using hydrogen as a fuel is not the same as using water as a fuel. The hydrogen must be separated from the water using some form of energy. Water is not the fuel, it is the raw material for hydrogen production.

Answer 5

Yes, The Stanley Steamer was the first car ever and was run on water.
The steam locomotive received it's energy from the water it was boiling in the boilers.
Water is a most powerful force; however, the technology to harness that force is still beyond technology.
In order to create the steam to create the power to run an engine it takes alternate fuels to create the heat to create the steam, such as wood and coal for the earlier steam engine and car, gasoline, oil, propane, natural gas in this day and age.
You have to have large storage tanks on board for the fuel as well as the water.
You have to have re-fueling stations as well.
Presently it is not cost effective, convienant, compact enough or environmentally friendly to operate engines of any kind on steam, but water is the best force by far if it could only be harrnessed.

Answer 6

Definitely YES, and no.

if you mix water with aluminum it turns into hydrogen and aluminum oxide. Of course you need something to prevent the aluminum from developing a wall at any place the water touches, but they have this all figured out in labs. In a dozen years we may have cars that run off of water and aluminum.

There is the issue that the aluminum oxide will have to be recycled and that is somewhat energy intensive, but that issue can be worked out as well.

To science geek: The only source of energy that doesn't have another source driving it is gravity. That includes oil by the way. It currently can't be used directly as a source of power. And Aluminum comes from deposits in the ground, not electrolysis. Electrolysis only can recycle it.

Answer 7

I say there is always a possibility and I happen to have an idea I sent to nasa and posted on discovery channel that does that it's based off nature at first and uses up pollution although pollution is the main fuel water is part of the fuel mixtures.

Answer 8

Indirectly, yes. Electricity can be used to dissociate water into oxygen and hydrogen. The hydrogen can be used to fuel a car in multiple ways. It can be used to power a fuel cell to power an electrical car, or can be burned directly in an internal combustion engine. I put my money of fuel cells. The power to produce hydrogen can be nuclear, oil, sunlight, wind or any other source.

Answer 9

As "they" say, anything is possible.

Good question. However, there are questions being raised about poor water quality, not enough water, where is the water going to come from.

I live in the Great Lakes region and other states are already looking to the Great Lakes for future water supplies. Contamination comes up, lack of water from dry states comes up, building and population comes up, poor management. I;m sure these are just a few of of the questions being raised.

This didn't just happen over night. Los Vegas has been told over twenty years ago they're going to run our of water. It takes a lot of water to run all those lights, but what's happening, they keep building bigger and better in "fun land." That's just one example.

We think there is an endless supply of water. Water has become a premium source of survival. Other countries still don't have good clean water. They have to drink and cook with contaminated water because they either don't have water period or they don't have the means and knowledge to find it. We all know the end result of that.

Here in the U.S.we have had big contamination problems from the run-off of the big company's who don't want to own up to it. People get sick and die of contaminated water and the big company's keep moving right along.

Yes we have water problems. You had a good questions, but where is the water going to come from.

Answer 10

Hey chattterus, do you know where the aluminum comes from. It's made by electrolysis. Where do you think they get the electricity from?

Chatterus, are you smoking crack. I don't even know where to begin. Aluminum is NEVER found in a pure state in nature. We produce it via electrolysis. Gravity is not a source of power. Don't cite news articles, I'm well aware of the ability of aluminum powders to react with water and produce hydrogen (they use aluminum in the solid rocket boosters of the shuttle). That still doesn't change the source of aluminum:
ELECTROLYSIS, ELECTROLYSIS, ELECTROLYSIS.
Maybe if I say it enough, you'll get it through that thick skull of yours.