why water cannot be used as a ' fuel ' in vehicles?

Question

Since hydrogen is a good fuel for vehicles , why water cannot be used as a ' fuel ' in vehicles? Why can't the vehicle break up the water molecule (which consists of 2 hydrogen atom & 1 oxygen atom) and use the hydrogen atom for burning and emit oxygen into the atmosphere ?

Answer 1

it takes more energy to break up the bindings
of hydrogen in water, than you gain from burning.

Answer 2

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Because energy cannot be extracted from salt-water in a way which would net extra energy (without using additional objects which would be the real fuel), such an engine is impossible. Assuming that was not the case though, the answer to your question would still vary depending on two main factors: 1. How much energy will the salt water provide? (lets say in comparison to gasoline) 2. This salt-water completely disappears when used? Typically, one would just need to add salt (or the salt) back into the water and the cycle could be done indefinitely, resulting in zero loss of water. Assuming the water had the energy of crude oil (not gas/petrol) and that the water would disappear entirely (in total that means 2-3 totally nonsensical and unrealistic things), I'd say it would last the current demand of gasoline for at least a million years, longer than the earth would likely survive for. Now the math: Oil demand globally: ~4.72 TL (10^12 liter) per year Water on earth ~1.2 ZL (10^21 liter) Divide the numbers and you'll get the answer of 250 million years (LOL) before we'd run out completely. The earth would encounter terrible problems from other causes long before the lack of seawater starts to cause problems for the earth. So my guess was right: Over a million years. One million years would result in less than half a percent of the earth's total water to be lost, which would not cause major problems. That said, such a powerful, freely-available fuel would result in huge increases in fuel consumption... everyone would be using their own personal flying vehicles to get around or something, lol. It's hard to even imagine what people would do with free energy

Answer 3

God question. Here's why that wont't work"

The water molecule contains 2 hydrogen atoms and one oxygenatom. You have to put a certain amount of energy in to break the hydrogen off of the oxygen atom. Now, assuming you have an engine that can do that (not easy, but assuming you did).

Here's the catch--when you use hydorgen as fuel, thisis done by burning it with oxygen----and the energy you get back out is only as much as you put in to break the oxygen and hydrogenapart in the first place--so you end up right back where you started, with no energy left over to move the car.

That's with a perfectly effiicient system--which it won't be; it takes some energy to run te process.

So--there is no way, even in principle, to get any net energy out of the water to run the car. Hydrogen is a greatfulel--but you have to produce the hydrogen first to use it effectively as a fuel in an automobile--and that may be a practiclal technologgy--that's essentially what a hydrogenfuel cell is.

Answer 4

It can, sort of. Their are only two proven ways to use water as a fuel.

1) As a source for air intake additive. The idea is you perform standard electrolysis on water and then inject the result into the air intake to increase the engine performance in a normal gasoline engines. The up side of this is that it can save up to 40% in some engines. The down side is it isn't guaranteed to save more than a couple percent on some engines and the only proven devices cost in the thousands to install on an engine.

2) Aluminum gallium reaction: Mix Aluminum and gallium and then expose to water. The result is Aluminum oxide, gallium, and hydrogen. A very simple idea that would produce hydrogen on demand from a tank of water. The downside is the aluminum oxide needs to be recycled and is a bit poisonous. Recycling aluminum oxide is a bit energy intensive. This research is being performed in laboratories right now. There has even been a small scale battery released for sale based on this technique.

No other technique has been proven and released to the public. Be aware that everything including oil based fuels take energy to produce. But that it takes energy to make this work is not an argument. It is if we can make the process cost a low enough amount that matters.

Answer 5

When you burn gasoline in your car, the major end product is steam, or water. This cannot be further burned to get more energy. It is technically an "ash" or a product of combustion. It would be like heating your house by burning wood ashes. I don't think you could get them to catch on fire, because they have already given up all of their energy. If you split water to Hydrogen and Oxygen, that requires an input of energy to make it happen, and you get that energy back when you burn the resulting hydrogen fuel. The main goal of photosynthesis is to use sunlight to split water molecules. When you burn up a plant, the energy released by the burning originally came from the sun, i.e.sunlight. I hope this helps.
P.S. Unless you are talking about thermonuclear fusion, which is the power source of the Sun itself. But that is a nuclear reaction, not a chemical one. We humans have never accomplished controlled nuclear fusion here on Earth, but we are working on it. If we succeed, it will be an unlimited source of energy.

Answer 6

The hydrogen and oxygen are bonded and It takes alot of energy to break up the hydrogen atom and the oxygen atoms. It takes more energy to un bind them than burning that hydrogen atom generates. Maybe one day we will find a way to unbind the atoms cheaply and water will be a great source of energy. Even greater than it already is.

Answer 7

Because it takes more energy to break the water up then you get from burning the hydrogen.

If you break the water in another place that has abundant energy then you just need to store the hydrogen but you aren't going to be able to do it on your car (if you have a source of energy on your car that can provide the power to split the water you'd probably be better off just running the car directly on that).

Answer 8

Well, there are hydrogen burning cells that take hydrogen and oxygen from the atmosphere, and pure water being the exaust product. There is also a way someone (I forget who and where) found out how to use water as a fuel by turning it into HHO, and then burning it.

Answer 9

It could probably be the engine of the future, by breaking the hydrogen and oxygen atom of water then an energy released. It is not really probably well researched yet or if it is functional already in some laboratory, it maybe too costly to make it commercial. (Or the Oil Companies paid those who created it not too make it public trillions of dollars in Gas Business will be in jeopardy - just a thought also)

Answer 10

Because it takes more energy to break up the water molecule than you get by brining the hydrogen.

Answer 11

Have you seen the hindenburg, it go boom when there is a lot of hydrogen in a concentrated in a small area, and oxygen equals bigger flames.