New Automobile Concept

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Condraz23

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Here is an alternative system to power cars...

Solar panels, rear axle power generators, kinetic energy power generators, windmills, electromagnetic radiation, and heat energy can be used to generate electricity. Then, the electricity could be used to electrolyse a large tank of water. Electrolysis of water is what's called a redox reaction. This means that electrons are being moved from one molecule to another. Once the water has been seperated into hydrogen and oxygen, they could be stored inside different tanks and combined again by using a spark to burn the hydrogen, which causes an explosion that would reunite them back into water and provide power for the car. Then, the resulting water could be electrolysed again and the cycle could go on flawlessly for many weeks at a time.

Platinum electrodes, although expensive, would have to be used though. Conventional electrodes produce byproducts of hydroxide which wears them out and destroys them after a few months of operation.

Unfortunetly, the problem with this system is that when the sun goes down, the car will stop moving or go terribly slow.
 
????
Somehow that doesn't sound right. I think Fuell Cell cars don't use combustion of Hydrogen to create motion. They work with inversion of Electrolysis to generate electricity, to then power up an electric engine. That is why the only thing that comes out of the exaust pipe is water.
Why do you say that exploding Hydrogen creates water?
 
Because when Hydrogen oxidises it becomes water.

The problem is it takes ALOT of energy to split the hydrogen and water from each other. So much that a study said that the UK would require 100 Nuclear power stations or a band of wind farms 5 miles wide around the entire coast to create enough energy. This is simply not practical.

Untill a more economic way is found to either split the water or create teh energy hydrogen energy will never be the 'norm'.
 
As ExigeExcel said, the energy required to do electrolysis is too much.

Also, the water vapor that remains from a hydrogen explosion is hardly enough to facilitate a continuous water->hydrogen->water cycle. :indiff:

Keep working on those ideas, though, Condraz23 -- you never know when you might come up with something revolutionary. :)
 
I don't mean this as an insult, Condraz23, so I hope you don't take it that way. However, this kind of idea is fairly typical coming from a child/young adult. In theory, ideas like this might seem OK, but when you get to the reality of developing the materials for the system and calculating if it'll actually work it ends up failing badly.
 
Thanks for the replies. Since I got this idea from one of my friends, I was really doubtful on his theory, so I published it here to see whether it would actually work or not. I was doubtful because it seemed to contradict with the third law of thermodynamics.

Anyway, even though the power needed to continiously electrolyse a tank of water would be unavailable, how about another idea...

A massively-large capacitor sits on top of your house and is connected to a 10-metre solar panel on the roof of your house. The solar panel absorbs the energy from sunlight. Rain from the sky falls into a tank. After it reaches a certain water level, the immense energy stored within the enormous capacitor electrolyses the water into hydrogen and oxygen molecules. There, the hydrogen is stored inside a seperate tank until the driver of a hydrogen car refills it inside his own garage. Then, the oxygen that is left is released back into the atmosphere.

Would this work?
 
whow.......you definitely thought about that one..... but still.... slight chance
 
Find out how much energy it takes to electrolyse 1 litre of water into hydrogen and oxygen. Find out how much energy you collect from an 'average' solar panel in an 'average' climate per hour. Calculate how many hours of sunlight you'd need to electrolyse the litre of water. Calculate how far you'd get with the hydrogen produced from the electrolysis of the water.

Even if the above does work out to be in the realms of possibility (I don't know if it is, I haven't done the calculations myself, but I doubt it's at all practical), think about the delivery system to get the hydrogen into the car and how to store the hydrogen (and you'll have to store it under pressure or have a very large tank, storing it under pressure will need a compressor of some sort, which needs energy to be driven).

Again, this idea is 'nice' in theory, but in terms of practicality it's way off, IMO.
 
Condraz23
Thanks for the replies. Since I got this idea from one of my friends, I was really doubtful on his theory, so I published it here to see whether it would actually work or not. I was doubtful because it seemed to contradict with the third law of thermodynamics.

Anyway, even though the power needed to continiously electrolyse a tank of water would be unavailable, how about another idea...

A massively-large capacitor sits on top of your house and is connected to a 10-metre solar panel on the roof of your house. The solar panel absorbs the energy from sunlight. Rain from the sky falls into a tank. After it reaches a certain water level, the immense energy stored within the enormous capacitor electrolyses the water into hydrogen and oxygen molecules. There, the hydrogen is stored inside a seperate tank until the driver of a hydrogen car refills it inside his own garage. Then, the oxygen that is left is released back into the atmosphere.

Would this work?
Click to expand...
Now it's a matter of space aswell. Not only storage tanks but fitting solar panels on the roof and in a good enough direction for good sunlight. Even if this did work it would probably be in sunny countries, equatorial and tropics mainly.

My other question is how many people would be happy with a 'giant capacitor' in their house. Lots of electricity usually means magnetism or electronic interference.
 
I'd say, if you're talking about the typical size of house, and current solar cell capacities, it'd probably take a month of charging to electrolyse enough water for one urban (40km total?) trip.

Now, Condraz did mention kinetic energy. There is one intriguing battery technology that's being researched at the moment. It involves a magnetically suspended flywheel spinning at high rpms inside a vacuum chamber. They can maintain their inertia for a very long time with very little loss. An electric current spins them up, and applying brakes to them generates electricity.

There are prototypes of different sizes, and they could be used to replace or augment conventional chemical storage batteries. The nice part is that they don't necessarily need exotic or toxic materials to work.

But so far, sizes are limited, I've seen a demonstration model that's a little smaller than a car battery, but we won't see cellphone or digital equipment batteries use this technology anytime soon...

And the storage capacity of flywheel batteries is limited by the number of rpms they can withstand, and to build batteries that'll hold a lot of charge requires very strong flywheels.
 
Okay, so maybe that idea wouldn't work either. I guess hydrogen's just too much trouble to mess around with. How about another idea...

A massively-large capacitor sits on top of your house and is connected to a 10-metre solar panel on the roof of your house. The solar panel absorbs the energy from sunlight. The energy is stored inside a capacitor until the driver of an electric car recharges their vehicle's battery inside his own garage.

The electric car could also feature its own built-in solar panels for maximum efficiency and may also utilize energy from regenerative braking.

As you can see, the main flaw within my previous concept was the energy efficiency of electrolysis.

Now, would this work?
 
Not knowing much about alrge voltage capacitators the only thing I can thing of is magnetic fields and people not being happy with such a source in their loft.
 
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