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High-schooler wants to build hydrolysis powered engine

I am a high school student trying to create a water powered engine, but I can't understand how to separate the water into H and O so that I can use the H and release the O. We thought about electrolysis by sticking one wire in the head and the other also, making one - and the other +. Can anyone out there help me?

Tony N.
- Calhoun, Kentucky, United States
2003

To whom it may concern,

One way to split H2 from the O is to take aluminum and submerge it in water, connect one end of the aluminum to - and the other to + the best way to do this without draining your power source or creating a short is to use a transformer of some kind, probably a stepdown for voltage, which will reduce the voltage but increase the current, if you can generate the electrical current through some means besides a battery, such as a manual crank or a motor powered crank hooked up to a generator that would be ideal, which you can run through a full wave rectifier circuit and then a capacitor network to produce DC. any way, to put it simply, put as many amps through that piece of aluminum as possible, this will oxidize the aluminum and form a slag that will drop to the bottom of the water OXIDIZE means that the Aluminum now has that O from the H2O attached to it, leaving the H2 free. to capture the H2 be sure to conduct all of this in an enclosed container to snare that hydrogen. (side note, try at your own risk, not responsible for anything that you might do, such as electrocution or explosion related accidents) Take a store bought adapter, one of those changeable voltage adapters clip the wire so that you have a + and a - then find some 'gator clips, with the plier closable ends, attach to the frayed ends, now find some aluminum, pop-cans have a significant amount of aluminum, but you need a wire or rod type shape for best results, then attach 'gator clips and submerge in the pressure tight container to get that H2!

good luck let me know how it turns out! and be safe, let your parents know what you are doing.

James Parker
USMC - Okinawa, Japan
2005

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Hello Tony. You have to start with the basics of the chemistry. First, there is no such thing as a system powered by electrolysis of water. A hydrogen-burning engine requires hydrogen; and although you can get hydrogen from the electrolysis of water, it naturally costs more energy to separate water into hydrogen and oxygen than you get back when you burn the hydrogen.

So the "point" of a hydrogen-burning engine is to create an internal combustion engine that does not pollute because the only product of combustion is water. The point is not to create energy; that doesn't work, and there is no such thing as a perpetual motion machine.

To generate the hydrogen you can put baking soda [in bulk on eBay or Amazon [affil links] into water to make it conductive, and then put wires that are connected to the two ends of a battery into the water, not touching. Hydrogen will form at one lead and oxygen at the other. You can collect these gases in separate bottles and burn the hydrogen either in the atmosphere or in the oxygen. Remember the Hindenburg though, and be careful with hydrogen because it is flammable.

Ted Mooney, P.E.
Striving to live Aloha
finishing.com - Pine Beach, New Jersey

DEAR TONY DO NOT LISTEN TO NAYSAYERS WHO TELL YOU YOU CANT DO SOMETHING. IF YOU WANT TO MAKE AN ENGINE THAT RUNS ON WATER, GO FOR IT. YES THE HYDROGEN SEPARATED FROM WATER CAN POWER AN ENGINE. GOOGLE HHO OR BROWNS GAS. LEARN ALL YOU CAN AND EXPERIMENT. CURRENTLY MANY PEOPLE SUPPLEMENT THEIR GAS ENGINES WITH HYDROGEN PRODUCED WHILE DRIVING. THERE IS NO PERPETUAL MOTION OR SOMETHING FOR NOTHING GOING ON HERE !YOU ARE JUST USING THE EXISTING POWER PRODUCED BY YOUR ALTERNATOR TO SPLIT WATER AND FEED IT INTO YOUR ENGINE. TO PRODUCE BETTER COMBUSTION WHICH INCREASES MILEAGE. GOOGLE STAN MEYERS, HE ACTUALLY ACHIEVED RUNNING HIS DUNE BUGGY FULLY ON HYDROGEN/OXYGEN. SCIENTISTS ARE NOT PERFECT ,THEY JUST KNOW WHAT THEY HAVE BEEN TAUGHT. BELIEVE WHAT YOU CAN SEE AND DO. TAKE CARE, GEORGE

GEORGE J.
- ELMER, New Jersey
September 12, 2008

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Hi, George. We absolutely need to be open minded -- look at all the technological progress made since we realized that the same process that was done in a vacuum tube could be done in a transistor. But one of the basic guards against being scammed involves following a few basic principles of science like 2 plus 2 equals 4, not 3 or 5; and the Laws of Thermodynamics, which we have never seen violated in the history of the universe.

So, can you slightly improve the performance of an internal combustion engine by generating some hydrogen from water and injecting it into the engine? Possibly; I don't know. Yes, it's worth investigating.

But can you use water as fuel (i.e., can you electrolize it into hydrogen and oxygen at a lower energy cost than you get from burning them)? No, of course not. Water is in a lower energy state than an equivalent amount of hydrogen and oxygen. Stan Meyers was sued by his investors and was convicted of scamming them. And in all these years no one has ever defended his "invention" in a single article in a peer-reviewed journal. Nor has anyone ever duplicated his claimed results. Conclusion from looking at it from these three different angles, on top of the 2nd Law? It was a scam. Case closed.

Regards,

Ted Mooney, P.E.
Striving to live Aloha
finishing.com - Pine Beach, New Jersey
September 18, 2008

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December 8, 2011

internal combustion gasoline engines run off the hydrogen in the gasoline molecules; the rest is waste: it fouls the engine and pollutes the atmosphere. Hydrolysis creates hydrogen and oxygen (which is needed for the spark from the sparkplugs). In theory, the hydrolysis chamber should be just before the carburetor: the system should be closed because hydrogen is extremely explosive.
This has nothing to do with perpetual motion: the parts wear-out from friction and you have to add water periodically; it is using an internal combustion engine in the most effective and cleanest way possible.
Despite what anyone says, a friend of mine used a hydrolysis system in his ford pick-up. He got the plans from a 1970's popular mechanics magazine; he used no gas; there was no visible gas line; he filled his gas tank with water; his exhaust looked and smelled very clean: like no hydrocarbons. I do not think he was scamming us -- he was just a regular mechanic.

John Wright
research - Grand Junction, Colorado, U.S.A.

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Hi, John.

It is true that gasoline can foul an engine and pollute the atmosphere, and clean-burning hydrogen can play a role in cleaner energy. But it is not true that engines run off of the hydrogen in gasoline and the rest is waste. Do you similarly believe that the heat from burning coal is solely from its hydrogen content (<4%) whereas its carbon (>90%) content would just be waste? Sorry, but you're just not right.

Again, you can certainly power a car by burning hydrogen. But what you cannot do is generate that hydrogen from water except by expending more energy in separating it than you get from burning it.

Regards,

Ted Mooney, P.E.
Striving to live Aloha
finishing.com - Pine Beach, New Jersey
December 9, 2011

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February 16, 2012

Hi Ted,
Ok about the second law of thermodynamics, but what about the solar panel? -- you get extra energy by tapping from an existing external source.
Considering E=mc2 you could get a lot of energy from, let's say one ml of water -- a lot of information is available about all this at www.free-energy-info.co.uk
Actually a few people could do it (should take a look at quanthomme.free.fr/energielibre/chercheurs/CHERCHEURS1.htm but it seems they get big problems: you can see the story of Allen Cagiano in end of chapter 10 of free-energy-info.co.uk site. Stanley meyer died after eating in a restaurant saying he had been poisoned.
Consider the works of Tesla, see about HAARP project due to his works.
I myself tried to construct a dry cell consisting of a sandwich of 316 stainless steel plates separated by EPDM o-rings between two acrylics plates immerged in a solution of distilled water and around 8 % of KOH: installed in my car I lower the consumption of my car of around 20%!
The only problem is that after 10 hours of use my plates especially cathodes starts to cover with black deposit lowering efficiency of my cell (maybe carbon from my sealers it seems EPDM should resist to KOH at this concentration but with action of electricity combined there could be some strange effects?). A person constructing and selling those cells told me that I could avoid this with a special finishing of my plates, didn't wanted to be precise which one!
Could anybody please help me telling how it could be??

Jerome B.
- Annecy France