Could a regular car run on hydrogen?

Question

I was wondering if a regular car could run on hydrogen, I found out it is very easy to turn water into hydrogen, a 15 year boy did it as a science experiment with a nine volt battery and salt water.

I was thinking of using the 12 volt car battery maybe and filling the tank with saltwater run the electrodes into it and badaboom there we go Hydrogen fuel!

Answer 1

Yes.  You don't really need to make changes in the engine, just the fuel injection system and fuel storage.  Despite what someone else posted, storing hydrogen isn't as dangerous as gasoline.  If you rupture a hydrogen tank, the goes up.  If you rupture gasoline, it spreads.

But, your example isn't practical.  A 12V car battery won't generate hydrogen quickly enough to run a car.  It would be better to use either nuclear power or solar power to generate hydrogen from sea water.  We would compress the hydrogen for shipment.

Answer 2

yes and no...

With the right modifications you can feed just about any fuel into just about any internal combustion engine.

During WWII many Germans converted their cars to use wood for fuel.

The question really is: How practical is it to convert the average gasoline engine to burn hydrogen?  And the answer is... not very.

Note... your electrolysis method of extracting hydrogen from water... uses up "prodigious amounts" of energy.  There is no way to recover even half that much energy re-burning the hydrogen in an internal combustion engine.  You can't even get 90% back in the most efficient fuel cell.

sorry... but perpetual motion doesn't work.

Answer 3

We already have a hydrogen concept car so yes

At a panel of scientists, engineers and industry experts that the National Academy of Sciences assembled in April 2007 to review the president's $1.2 billion "hydrogen initiative," panelists agreed that President Bush's hydrogen car goals are slipping away. According to physicist and former U.S. Department of Energy official Joseph Romm, for example, "A hydrogen car is one of the least efficient, most expensive ways to reduce greenhouse gases." Asked when hydrogen cars will be broadly available, Romm replied: "Not in our lifetime, and very possibly never."[2]. General Motors disagrees with that sentiment and has announced that it will start hydrogen vehicle production in 2010. However, GM's chief engineer on the fuel cell project, Mohsen Shabana, said hydrogen infra-structure would not be in place by then, and he noted that GM had produced only two test units of the Sequel (pictured above) so far.[3].

Answer 4

yes the conversion is pretty simple. the problem is compressing the gas and storing enough for travel.

below is one of many links to do the conversion and to make hydrogen.

Answer 5

The question is where does the energy actually come from.

In your example it comes from whatever source you use to charge that 12-volt battery, NOT the hydrogen.

Hydrogen that is used in fuel cells currently comes from either natural gas or is collected from crude oil (which is a combination of hundreds of chemicals).  Also, it can be generated from water if you use another source of energy--and it requires alot--to break apart water.

Answer 6

Just one problem that I've agonized over for years...  Do you know the 5 properties of water? Pure water is: tasteless, odorless, colorless, cannot be compressed, AND cannot be manufactured!!!!  The last property is the one that scares me....  If we electrolisize water into hydrogen fuel, someday the planet will be without water which is needed for all life on this planet!!!!!

Answer 7

Yeah, get a car set up to run CNG, there are millions of em.  Hydrogen and CNG are very similar, and should take only a few regulator tweaks.  

However (and this is why hardly anybody does this) the cost of making hydrogen is going to be waaaaaay more than gas.  

The problem is the laws of thermodynamics.  You can't beat em, which is why the "car that runs on water" link someone else posted... doesn't work.

Now water CAN be manufactured.  In fact, your car engine does it while you're driving.  It takes hydrogen from the hydrocarbons in the fuel, adds oxygen from the atmosphere, and voila! H2O!  Now that means more water in the world and less oxygen.  

Hydrogen electrolysis will involve taking H2O, converting to H2 and O2, releasing the O2 into the atmosphere, putting the H2 in your car which grabs the O2 back out of the atmosphere and makes it back into H2O.

Answer 8

theoretically yes but it is really dangerous stuff in large amounts and you would need to convert the intake.