Here’s a handy list of the most promising technologies being worked on to extract energy from water.

1. The plasma spark plug

The plasma spark circuit was realized a few years back in the open source energy community and triggered a wave of interest and research that resulted in several companies bringing a version of the circuit to market independently. The basic premise is that the normal spark plug can be enhanced to provide a plasma spark when the current from the battery is run through a unique circuit. The resulting spark can be used to crack water and burn fuel at extremely lean ratios of upto 80:20 water:fuel combinations.

2. The Geet Plantone fuel system allowing leaned out ratios of 80:20 water:gasoline

The Geet Plantone system uses Browns gas or HHO which is extracted from water using a unique electrolysis method. The fuel is then used to run the engine which is designed to work with this specific fuel type. The potential in the Geet Plantone is that the system is almost self fueling once running and very close to a completely closed system.

3. The Firestorm sparkplug from Robert Kruiper

The Firestorm spark plug was apparently thought of and prototyped within a space of two hours. Then refined over the years and patented very broadly. The inventor Robert Kruiper originally tried to sell the technology but then decided to manufacture it himself as he could make more money that way. However after many years of funding drives he has still not brought it to market. Independent investigators and researchers have built, tested and verified the voracity of the design and have confirmed that it can be used to ignite extremely leaned out ratios of fuel up to 80:20 water:gasoline. The principal is almost exactly the same as the plasma spark plug except the Firestorm does not suffer from degradation due to the unique use of metals on the tip.

4. The Plasmatron from MIT aka ArvinMeritor’s Plasma Fuel Reformer

Another plasma sparkplug concept. This time from MIT where it was apparently conceived in 1996 and then refined over the next 7 years before being licensed to Arvin Meritor who originally predicted it would become available to the market by 2010. Basic idea is to use plasma to extract hydrogen from a liquid like water or other fuel and combine it with the existing fuel in the spark chamber to get a greater efficiency in the burn process of at least 20%.

5. The Al-Ga composite from Jerry Woodal at Purdue

This promising technology was discovered by Jerry Woodal while working for IBM all the way back in 1967. He was working with aluminium and gallium and added water to cool the metal quickly when he experienced a large explosion which tweaked his interest. Since then he has worked with his colleagues at Purdue to refine the technology to the point where they can produce a composite metal which will force hydrogen loose from water immediately leaving an alumina powder and pure gallium as the result.

6. Solar hydrogen electrolysis and photosynthesis using silica catalysts from MIT

Another MIT technology that promises to allow hydrogen to be recovered from water much more efficiently than standard electrolysis. They are also finding new materials with the base composition that can be used as the catalyst. The potential is to greatly decrease the material cost of producing hydrogen through electrolysis. Not sure what the impact on total energy cost will be though.

7. Using Geobacter to produce base acetylate for oil/plastic production

This technology is from UMass/Amherst Professor Derek Lovely and promises to provide renewable green fuel using micro bacteria to produce the base acetylate which can be used to create all oil based fuels and plastics. Basic idea is to use sunlight to provide power to attract the electrons in water so the bacteria can feed directly off the electrons with the waste product produced by the bacteria being acetylate.

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Scientists at UMass/Amherst are researching the possibilities in using geobacter strains to extract electrons from water using only sunlight as a power source. With a simple process and the right bacteria it is possible to produce acetate or acetyl-Co A which is a basic building block of all oil based fuels and plastics.

In practical terms, the closed ME system Lovley envisions could be located anywhere sunlight is available, and harvested with an array of solar panels. As he explains, “It’s a two-electrode system. One electrode extracts electrons from water and produces oxygen as a byproduct. The electrons travel to the second electrode where the bacteria are, and they take in carbon dioxide and spit out acetate. With further engineering the bacteria are expected to also be able to produce fuels or other valuable commercial chemicals, for example, butanediol, used to make plastics. ”

Tags: Fuel by Sparky
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This page has a biased and jaded overview of the potential for water as a fuel in automobiles and a general overview of some of the more contentious claims that have been made for powering cars on water. Clearly the writer is not impressed with the numerous claims made over the years for cars that run on water or use water as a storage medium for Hydrogen or Browns gas.

However the writer also fails to mention the plasma spark plug, the Geet Plantone fuel system allowing leaned out ratios of 80:20 water:gasoline, the Firestorm sparkplug from Robert Kruiper, the Plasmatron from MIT, ArvinMeritor’s Plasma Fuel Reformer, the potential in using Al-Ga composite from Jerry Woodal at Purdue, solar hydrogen electrolysis and photosynthesis using silica catalysts from MIT or even a general overview of the actual energy potential available in a liter of water in real world numbers and not just abstract (for most readers) chemical algorithms.

Even though there is an indisputable energy loss in freeing hydrogen from it’s watery prison that does not mean it is not possible to use it as a fuel source. The question is how inefficient are we prepared to be when it comes to transportation and energy supply and are there other ways to coax hydrogen out from it’s watery orgy so that we can also use it as an energy source.

Water is fully oxidized hydrogen. Hydrogen itself is a high-energy, flammable substance, but its useful energy is released when water is formed–water will not burn. The process of electrolysis, discussed below, would split water into hydrogen and oxygen, but it takes as much energy to take apart a water molecule as was released when the hydrogen was oxidized to form water. In fact, some energy would be lost in converting water to hydrogen and then burning the hydrogen because some heat would always be produced in the conversions. Releasing chemical energy from water would therefore violate the first and/or second laws of thermodynamics.

Tags: Chronology, Fuel, Fundamentals by Sparky
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This has been known about since 1967 but still has not made it to market. Purdue University Professor Jerry Woodal has found a way to use Aluminium and Gallium to split water. No electricity needed!!! Well, except for the energy required to extract the metals from the earth and form them into the composite in the first place… Jerry is most excited about the possibility of using it as a fuel multiplier so in conjunction with a plasma spark plug or plasma fuel reformer the hydrogen could be used to increase the efficiency of the gasoline used in hybrid or standard ICE cars. What’s the delay?

View the lectures below.

THE SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY OF ALUMINUM-GALLIUM ALLOYS AS A MATERIAL FOR ENERGY STORAGE, TRANSPORT AND SPLITTING WATER

THE ALUMINUM ENABLING HYDROGEN FUEL ECONOMY

From 2007 lecture

2,7lbs of Al will produce the same amount of energy in the form of hydrogen as 1lb of gasoline. i.e 19K BTU

It takes 20 gal x 6.5 lbs/gal = 130 lbs gasoline to drive an average car for 350 mi or 350 lbs Al

At $3/gal for gasoline and $0.8/lb for Al the trip costs $60 using gasoline and $280 using Al

If an Al recycler is built next to a nuclear power plant with and on-site power cost of $0.02/KW-hour Al can be recycled from alumina back to Al for 9 kW/hr/lb x 350lbs x $0.02/kW-hr = $63

The cost of 2.7 lbs would be about 49 cents

At $3/gallon, 1lb of gasoline costs 46 cents

Tags: Engine, Fuel, Fundamentals by Sparky
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The question comes to mind of how much energy is stored in water if we are going to use it as a fuel. Looking around there are conflicting amounts provided on the internet.

A litre of water contains the equivalent of 1366 litres of hydrogen – which provides the same energy as 0.4 litres of petrol.

2H20 –> 2H2 + 02
Mr of H20 = 18
No. of moles of H20 = 1000/18 = 55.66666
No. of moles of H2 produced = 55.66666
At room temperature and pressure, the amount of H2 (hydrogen) produced: 55.66666 x 24 = 1333.33 dm^3 where 1 dm^3 is 1 litre of gas = 1000 m^3 of gas

1 liter of water contains (approx) 55.56 moles of water, so 111.11 moles of hydrogen.

Using the ideal gas equation, PV=nRT at 1 atmosphere (sealevel), and room temperature (22C, 295K)

V = 111.11 * 0.08205784 * 295 / 1

Gives 2689.7 liters of hydrogen.

The amount of hydrogen extracted from a gallon of water can be found very easily using the molecular weight of H20 (water), Hydrogen and Oxygen, along with mass conservation. the molecular weight of water is 2 H (molecular weight 1) + 1 Oxygen (Molecular weight 16) for a total of 18. And for every Molecule of water converted, we would get 2 Molecules of Hydrogen.

So, now the question is, how many molecules of water are there in a gallon of water? The density of water is 1g/(cm3) so in 1 gallon of water ( about 3.785 Liters or 3785 cm3) the mass of the water is, 3785g. 1 mole of 6.02×1023 molecules of water is equal has the mass in grams equal to the molecular weight or 18 grams per mole. so 3785 grams corresponds to about 1.265 x 1026 molecules of water.

Now, if every single one of those molecules were converted into Hydrogen we would get twice as much hydrogen as we had of water. or 2.53 x 1026 molecules of hydrogen. however since hydrogen is a diatomic molecule, meaning that the hydrogen that we talk about is H2, we would get 1.265 x 1026 molecules of hydrogen. at 1 atmospheric pressure and 273K, 1 mole of hydrogen fills approximately 22.4L of volume. so 1.265 x 1026 molecules or about 210 moles, would fill 4707 Liters of volume.

It is known that a gram atom is equal to atomic mass of substance; a gram molecule is equal to molecular mass of substance. For example, the gram molecule of hydrogen in the water molecule is equal to two grams; the gram-atom of the oxygen atom is 16 grams. The gram molecule of water is equal to 18 grams. Hydrogen mass in a water molecule is 2 x 100 / 18 = 11.11%; oxygen mass is 16 x 100 / 18 = 88.89 %; this ratio of hydrogen and oxygen is in one liter of water. It means that 111.11 grams of hydrogen and 888.89 grams of oxygen are in 1000 grams of water.

One liter of hydrogen weighs 0.09 g; one liter of oxygen weighs 1.47 g. It means that it is possible to produce 111.11 / 0.09 = 1234.44 liters of hydrogen and 888.89 / 1.47 = 604.69 liters of oxygen from one liter of water. It appears from this that one gram of water contains 1.23 liters of hydrogen. Energy consumption for production of 1000 liters of hydrogen is 4 kWh and for one liter 4 Wh. As it is possible to produce 1.234 liters of hydrogen from one gram of water, 1.234 x 4 = 4.94 Wh is spent for hydrogen production from one gram of water now.

If you mean hydrogen gas, H2, just naturally present in the water, then essentially none.

If you mean how much hydrogen gas could be generated by the electrolysis of 1 gallon of water, that is a stoichiometry problem. The balanced reaction is:
2H2O –> 2H2 + O2
The mass of 1 gallon of water is 3.7854 kilograms, which is 210.3 moles of H2O. From the stoichiometry, there is a 1 to 1 (2 to 2) ratio of water to hydrogen produced, and so 210.3 moles of H2 will be produced. 210.3 moles of H2 weighs 420.6 grams, or just under one pound.

If you mean hydrogen ions, H+, then it depends on the pH of the water. In perfectly pure, neutral water with pH of 7, then the concentration of H+ is 10-7 moles per liter. In one gallon, there are 3.7854 liters. So in one gallon of pure water, there are 3.7854 * 10-7 moles of H+.

Gasoline has around 44 MegaJoules/kg
H2 has around 121 MJ/kg

So, H2 has 2.75x the energy per weight of gasoline

So, if you assume 20 mpg now @ 60 mph, you burn 3 gallons per hr, which is 0.05 gal/min. Gas is about 4 kgs/gal so you burn 0.2 kg/min. Using the energy density difference (2.75) you get 0.073kg of H2 per min. Assuming room pressure and ideal gas law (sadly H2 is not an ideal gas but lets use it anway, i’m lazy) you get 22.7 liters of gas per 2 g of hydrogen. So, after that bunch of math you get 825 liters/min of uncompressed gas.

This amount of gas would be difficult to store, at 2500 psi this is the equalent of 1 gallon of volume, so it would take a big, heavy tank to hold something useful

The other issue with using hydrogen is how to make it in real quantities. The best available methods right now are electrolosis which uses

Theoretically it takes 32.9 kWh/kg of H2 produced

Typical electric costs in the US are $0.15/kwk so it would cost $4.94 per KG to make it using a large commercial system

An actual system is never this efficient, even big systems are 60 kwh per kg, so I’d double that number.

Tags: e=mc2, Fundamentals by Sparky
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Interesting write up on the limitations of energy storage technology when harnessing energy from renewable sources like wind, solar, tidal.

Let’s start with batteries. Today’s lead acid batteries can store about 0.1 mega-joules per kilogram, or about 500 times less than crude oil. Those batteries, of course, could be improved, but any battery based on the standard lead-oxide/sulfuric acid chemistry is limited by foundational thermodynamics to less than 0.7 mega-joules per kilogram.

Due to the theoretical limits of lead-acid batteries, there has been serious work on other approaches such as lithium-ion batteries, which usually involve the oxidation and reduction of carbon and a transition metal such as cobalt. These batteries have already improved upon the energy density of lead-acid batteries by a factor of about 6 to around 0.5 mega-joules per kilogram–a great improvement. But as currently designed, they have a theoretical energy density limit of about 2 mega-joules per kilogram. And if research regarding the substitution of silicon for carbon in the anodes is realized in a practical way, then the theoretical limit on lithium-ion batteries might break 3 mega-joules per kilogram. Therefore, the maximum theoretical potential of advanced lithium-ion batteries that haven’t been demonstrated to work yet is still only about 6 percent of crude oil!

But what about some ultra-advanced lithium battery that uses lighter elements than cobalt and carbon? Without considering the practicality of building such a battery, we can look at the periodic table and pick out the lightest elements with multiple oxidations states that do form compounds. This thought experiment turns up compounds of hydrogen-scandium. Assuming that we could actually make such a battery, its theoretical limit would be around 5 mega-joules per kilogram.

So the best batteries are currently getting 10 percent of a physical upper bound and 25 percent of a demonstrated bound. And given other required materials such as electrolytes, separators, current collectors, and packaging, we’re unlikely to improve the energy density by more than about a factor of 2 within about 20 years. This means hydrocarbons–including both fossil carbon and biofuels–are still a factor of 10 better than the physical upper bound, and they’re likely to be 25 times better than lithium batteries will ever be.

A more promising approach is to use fuel cells with liquid and gaseous fuels. The two obvious choices for such fuels are hydrogen and hydrocarbons; in terms of energy per unit mass, hydrogen beats crude oil and natural gas by a factor of almost 3. Alas, hydrogen is a gas at surface conditions, so its volume density is horrible unless it’s compressed to several hundred atmospheres of pressure. At 700 bars, for example, hydrogen has an energy-volume density of around 6 mega-joules per liter, while gasoline at 1 bar has about 34 mega-joules per liter. Both hydrogen and hydro-carbons can be produced from renewable energy sources, though doing so economically and at a global scale remains a challenge.

Tags: e=mc2, Fundamentals by Sparky
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Here’s an write up from a Stanford University Professor of Computer science about the various uses and drawbacks for hydrogen as a fuel. Seems not much has changed since he started writing the page in 1996. Has useful data about the power available in hydrogen.

Hydrogen is the lightest of the elements with an atomic weight of 1.0. Liquid hydrogen has a density of 0.07 grams per cubic centimeter, whereas water has a density of 1.0 g/cc and gasoline about 0.75 g/cc. These facts give hydrogen both advantages and disadvantages. The advantage is that it stores approximately 2.6 times the energy per unit mass as gasoline, and the disadvantage is that it needs about 4 times the volume for a given amount of energy. A 15 gallon automobile gasoline tank contains 90 pounds of gasoline. The corresponding hydrogen tank would be 60 gallons, but the hydrogen would weigh only 34 pounds.

In terms of energy contained, 9.5 kg of hydrogen is equivalent to 25kg of gasoline ( Peschka 1987). Storing 25 kg of gasoline requires a tank with a mass of 17 kg, whereas the storage of 9.5 kg of hydrogen requires 55kg, (Peschka 1987). Part of the reason for this difference is that the volume of hydrogen fuel is about 4 times greater for the same energy content of gasoline. Although the hydrogen storage vessel is large, hydrogen burns 1.33 times more efficiently than gasoline in automobiles ( Bockris and Wass 1988). In tests a BMW 745h liquid-hydrogen test vehicle with a 75 kg tank and the energy equivalent of 40 liters of gasoline had a cruising range in traffic of 400 km, or a fuel efficiency of 10 km per liter ( Winter 1986).

Tags: e=mc2, Fuel by Sparky
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Here’s an interesting little promo for a book from Hypnow.fr chronicling water engines over the past century. Worth a read for anyone who doubts the long term research that has been suppressed or otherwise delayed from getting to market.

Tags: Chronology, Engine, Fuel by Sparky
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Albert A Bartlett’s fascinating lecture on Arithmetic, Energy and Population explains everything you need to know about the world energy crisis and how population growth is the single biggest contributor to energy consumption. After viewing this you will be left with no doubt that we need to see more action from industry and the lawmakers to provide more fuel efficiency and energy positive fuel alternatives.

Remember even if it is touted as a green energy solution, if it takes more energy to create the technology that the technology provides it is still energy negative! Where does the energy energy come from to create the technology in the first place? Most of it comes from Oil and Coal of course.

Also keep in mind that there is enough energy in the worlds stock pile of nuclear warheads to provide the worlds energy needs for approx the next 200 years even with current growth and consumption rates factored in. But what is most likely going to happen to that resource? The big oil companies run by the banksters will waste it blowing each other up in order to secure their hold on the last remaining and ever dwindling world supply of oil reserves!!!

View the channel here for this 8 part lecture or just click the left/right arrows to go to the next chapter.

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Here’s a lost Revizal video showing him running his generator on an 80:20 water:gasoline mix using the plasma spark and the Geet system. Recall that Robert Krupa also claimed upto 80:20 ratio for the Krupa sparkplug too.

When is this tech going to make it to market? Surely the remaining oil is worth more to us as a long term resource and we should conserve as much of it as possible now that it is running out since we passed the worldwide peak in 2003/4. What makes the oil companies think it is a good idea to use it all up as fast as possible? Is it just greedy shareholders that demand they make as much money as possible as quickly as possible? If that is the case why is it publicly acceptable for this to happen let alone legally possible.

Where is the governmental oversight? They can print money as much as they want but they can’t make new oil to replace the dwindling reserves. Surely it is in everyones interests for the oil reserves to last as long as possible than it is to consume it all as quickly as possible?

Tags: Circuits, Engine, Fuel by Sparky
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