[curtis73]

I saw a water engine running from tanks of H2 and O2. A professor of engineering (U of Nebraska I think) came and spoke at a symposium at my university. He had converted a Briggs and Stratton 5 hp motor to run on hydrogen and oxygen. It provided a moderate compression ratio and has good aftermarket support. His main problems were:

1) extreme temps. Where as gasoline combustion typically happens at 1500-1800 degrees F, the compressed hydrogen/oxygen mixture burns at 2300-2600

2) upper cylinder lubrication. Gasoline has some lubrication qualities but water has very little. The constant contact with steam was very effective at washing down the cylinder walls. He designed a different ring package and changed the texture of the cylinder walls to increase oil deposition, but it was at the cost of reduced compression sealing and increased oil contamination/consumption. In fact, his engine burned enough oil that its emissions were almost as high as its gasoline counterpart.

3) Oil contamination. Blowby in hydrocarbon engines comes in the form of hydrocarbons. Mostly miscible in oil and easily burned off or evaporated when the oil gets hot. Blowby in water engines is water. Although it spends little time in the oil, enough of it can cause it to emulsify in the oil and turn it to basically Miracle Whip.

4) That whole conservation of energy thing. Whereas hydrocarbon fuels carry their energy as potential, water carries its energy stored in tight molecular bonds. All it takes to release hydrocarbon's energy is the addition of activation energy. In the case of a gasoline engine, a spark. In the case of a diesel engine, heat from compression. Water must be first separated into hydrogen and oxygen for it to be able to combust. That takes a ton of energy... it takes as much energy or more to split it up as you get back when you combust it. The idea of putting water in your tank, turning a key, and getting water out your tailpipe won't ever happen. The running engine would have to make more energy than its getting from the combustion just to support itself.

5) Speed of combustion. Gasoline and oxygen burning create a certain flame speed (I forget averages... maybe someone will remind me), but hydrogen and oxygen create incredibly fast flame fronts. It ends up being kinda like burning 82 octane in a 14:1 compression race engine. The extreme spikes in cylinder pressures would almost instantly destroy engine components. The demonstration I watched circumvented this by using very delayed ignition timing, and allowing only enough hydrogen and oxygen in to barely support operation. His estimate was that his 5-hp engine was only making about 1 hp and it could only operate at one speed.

If you've never seen the process of electrolysis on water, you should. Hypothetically, if you took two ends of a wire, put them in a glass of water, and plugged the cord into a 120v household outlet (which you can't really do, but for the sake of demonstration...) you would get nice little bubbles of hydrogen and oxygen at about the same speed as an alka seltzer bubbles in a glass. It would make about one litre of hydrogen and about 1/2 litre of oxygen every hour. A 1.5-litre engine needs that much hydrogen/oxygen mixture approximately 12,000 times per hour on the highway. We would have to speed up the process of electrolysis by 12,000 times just to support accleration. Even if we could come up with some external source of providing the energy for electrolysis - like a solar panel capable of generating 1,500,000 volts (about what it would take), why would we waste that energy on splitting up molecules when we could just use the electricity to power the car. Turning water into fuel, then back to water is equivalent to taking exhaust, converting it back to gasoline, then burning it. It just won't happen.

The only real viable option with current or projected technology for an H2O car is if the gas is already in its diatomic state carried in tanks. Then you have to carry tanks of H2 and O2 in your trunk. Not too safe in an accident. But then you're still faced with oil contamination, short engine life from cylinder wall scuffing, extreme heat that requires very large cooling systems, and durability of internal engine parts.

Another very important part is patent law in those days. Patents were easy to get. It was a new process designed to protect inventors in a time when technology was booming, the stock market was a masterful way of cornering market power, and patents only required a submission of plans. It was free advertisement. It was also a time when car manufacturers were anything from the big boys like Ford all the way down to independed coach manufacturers that made wooden-framed horseless carriages in a barn. Getting patents on fantastic inventions was a way of getting attention. In Bedford, PA, for instance there was a coach manufacturer (actually two farmers who put Lipper engines on used carriages) who patented a new steering system. It never made it to a single carriage because it was too hard to operate and failed frequently, but people came from miles around to buy Leighty's carriages because they were a pioneer in steering technology. Ford did similar things with patents.

My guess is that the water carburetor was a market ploy. No physical manipulation available in a carburetor could possibly disassociate hydrogen from oxygen. Basically, what I'm saying is the patent was a hoax designed to get people to buy their cars. You can't put water through a venturi and magically have it split into its component atoms.