About hydrogen powered cars...?

Question

If hydrogen powered cars only produce water and nothing else, couldnt car makers make a car that never needs to be refilled?

I think they could do this by making some kind of gizmo (I wont pretend to know how to do it) that separates the hydrogen and oxygen from water and then burns the hydrogen to create even more energy and keep the "water cycle" going. I'm not sure if this would work, but I only came up with it in science today at school. Also, tell me if anyone already does this please.

:-)

Answer 1

Well, you're certainly not the first person to think of this, but unfortunately, it won't work. Water is the end product of combustion. Trying to seperate it back out without returning that energy back into it would be like trying to burn wood ashes in a fireplace. Hydrogen is not a fuel source. It is an energy conduit, like electricity.

Answer 2

If you or anyone else could make a perpetual motion machine they would become the richest most powerful person in the world.

Answer 3

Can you imagine how expensive water would be…

Answer 4

It's called hydrolysis.  You use electricity to separate water into hydrogen and oxygen.  You couldn't fit that large a hydrolysis machine under the trunk, and then you'd have to store water there.  The water comes out the tailpipe in drops, so even if you could collect it and it didn't evaporate, you wouldn't have a lot.  And electrolysis doesn't make hydrogen quickly, so you might have to park for a couple hours to make some more so you can drive.  

So, it's not a practical idea.  It's better just to use the electricity to power the car and skip the hydrogen-separating altogether.

Answer 5

The theory of relativity everything has an equal & opposite reaction.  There is nowt for nowt or a Yorkshire farmer would have found it long before Einstein

Answer 6

Separating the [1] Hydrogen atom from the [2] Oxygen atoms requires more energy than you get from recombining them into water again.  Besides which, you have to use some of the energy to make the car go.  No, it won't work.

Using H to power a car is not easy.  To keep H as a liquid it must be refrigerated to nearly absolute zero, hundreds of degrees below the freezing point of water.  If the refrigeration unit stops, BOOM!  Compressed to 10,000 psi it would take a tank 5 times larger than a petrol tank to go the same distance.  Heavy tank too,  Stored in metal hydrides you would need about 1500 pounds of hydrides to have the same range a s a standard tank of petrol.

Making H also takes a lot of electricity, so you need more electrical generating facilities, mostly nuclear or coal-fired which cause their own pollution problems.  So while the vehicle using H as a fuel has zero emissions, there are more emissions at the generating plants that make the electricity to make the H.

Solar electricity is fine in the daytime for the production of H, but it makes it much more expensive than petrol.

You are thinking, which is good,  However learn to spell -specifically how to use contractions - as in  couldn't - not couldnt ... and  won't - not wont   - it will help.  Study science and chemistry, you may solve the energy problem.

Answer 7

Eh, that would be a perpetual motion machine - and now you are in the land of science fiction.

It takes as much energy to split the hydrogen and oxygen as you get from burning it to power the vehicle....

Answer 8

you would use electrolises, but you would still have to ad sulfuric acid to speed it up and possebly use a vacuum pump to return water to a storage tank you would also need a battery for electrolises.

Answer 9

Firstly you need energy to produce the hydrogen, secondly it is very dangerous stuff to store, thirdly water vapour is also a greenhouse gas.

Answer 10

Law of conservation of energy.

If you split apart the water molecule (assuming 100% efficiency) and then you bind them back together, you get no energy because no work is done.

Therefore it is not possible.

Answer 11

It is a scam as it is impossible to do what u want to do. U never get something for nothing.!!!!