Motorcycle Runs on Water

[FMFGSX]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FW_LQqJk740-

This is pretty cool.

[GytRDunKat]

Great, now water is going to $4.00 a gallon! I'm calling BS, but I could be wrong.

[hardlydangerous]

looks like water but it'a actually moonshine

[Dan Dubeau]

My first thought was electrolosis (flashback to highschool science class). But now I'm unsure. Who knows Could be real, could be a hoax, But I do know one thing; those Kiwi's are some pretty smart mother****ers

What I do want to know is, where the hell is the rest of the story

[DayKat]

And I run on beer, but I'm supposing that's beside the point eh?

[The CyberPoet]

There's been endless debates on whether a "formula" solution exists [or even can exist] to crack the molecular bonds of water to separate out the oxygen and hydrogen which at the same time is not a net-energy-loss (electrolysis is not one of them) AND permits the resultant output to be detonated before they can recombine to form water again.

There have been some patents filed on methods that *might* work, but I remain skeptical at best. The last one I saw might actually have some merit (still skeptical here), doing the actual separation as a final stage right at the cylinder (think at the spark plug/injector combo) and detonating the freshly-sheared combo on the spot.

The obvious solutions (use sunlight that hits your home's roof to split the stuff in a machine that then stores the results for transfer to the bike) simply don't get much press because of the engineering challenges (esp. hydrogen storage) and costs involved in the set-up. But that is a feasible answer, esp. if you don't travel far on a regular basis.

Now for the final bit: if I had invented a way to split water and use it in an internal combustion engine, I would first send a certfied (date-stamped) copy of the process to myself for safe storage, and then I'd be flooding every media outlet I could with how I did it. This is one of those things where you don't even need to make patent money off the invention -- you'd be rich for the rest of your life just from speaker's fees, publicity tours, consulting fees, nobel peace prize money, etc...
The fact that all these inventors are hush-hush about it is part of what makes me skeptical...

Cheers,
=-= The CyberPoet

[Zepp]

Wow!!! Amazing stuff. This guy would be an instant billionaire if true.

[Genkenx2]

You don't really believe in this cold fusion mumbo jumbo do you?

/the saint...

I guess Chain Reaction is the more appropriate film reference, but there's no cheeky quote to use for that one.

[GytRDunKat]

The fact that all these inventors are hush-hush about it is part of what makes me skeptical...

Cheers,
=-= The CyberPoet

In an effort to get one of your wonderful writeups, why are you skeptical?

[Malloc]

also cyber , i forgot the name , do you remeber the guy that invented the device that got extremly hot and was used in a combustion engine that we saw on tv , and i think he used it to with water too.

[StevieB]

...if I had invented a way to split water and use it in an internal combustion engine, I would first send a certfied (date-stamped) copy of the process to myself for safe storage, and then I'd be flooding every media outlet I could with how I did it...you'd be rich for the rest of your life just from speaker's fees, publicity tours, consulting fees, nobel peace prize money, etc...

Right-o there- in the scientific community that's called peer review (for the two of you who may not have already known that) and very important to the process.

You don't really believe in this cold fusion mumbo jumbo do you?

Great reference. I might add Korean cloning to that list.

[Black_peter]

Right-o there- in the scientific community that's called peer review

Oh jeez not this again!!!


As Cyber alluded, there is nothing free, Conservation of energy (now generally lumped with Lomonosov-Lavoisier law and Einstein's special relativity as conservation law.) states that both sides of the equation are equal. Why is gasoline (as well as other "flammables") seem to be so free? Well in the case of fossil fuels the generation of the hydro-carbons took millions of years (unless you believe the Inorganic Theory) to produce. The sunlight energy stored in plants, eaten by early animals, stored then distilled in pits after their death. Time is the equaling factor in gasoline. You can get a combustible chemical easily because the base product (crude) took a long time (low energy input over a long time).
You can use Hydrogen (an element) but you need to;
a. extract it from the air (high energy short time)
b. "crack" it from water (high energy short time)
When I use the work "crack" I'm referring to a process by which the bonds of a molecule are cracked to produce either a new molecule or a usable element.
You have two choices in chemical reactions (or cracking). Low energy, long time or high energy short time.

The classroom technique is a simple version of the method used in the real world, electricity is used to crack the water into hydrogen and oxygen. A common use is in submarines, however submarines have the advantage of nuke reactors generating lots of electricity and therefore the process can be very inefficient yet still be worth while (especially considering the alternatives, suffocation or trailing a snorkel. ) However if you did the math the amount of hydrogen produced in the class room experiment is a fraction of the energy used to crack the water. So you are using more energy then you are getting.

Cracking something like water into a combustible on the fly, that is adding water to a tank and using it instantly, means either you have a high speed (remember speed = energy in reactions) cracker (possibly chemical as in a catalyst) or the Holy Grail (or maybe Ark of the Covenant). A catalyst would be another chemical that when it comes in contact with the water reacts with the oxygen but not the hydrogen (or not all of it) thus releasing the hydrogen (and little else harmful to combustion) where it gets burned in the engine. These are generally toxic, expensive and since they react with the water they are used up. The most common use of this process is in your catalytic converter. Chemicals in the "cat" react with the exhaust changing part of it to non harmful chemicals. But then the "cat" itself becomes a landfill and health nightmare (it fact it was one when brand new). Also as you might imagine not all the exhaust is exposed to the "cat" (if it were all cars would be the size of a vista cruiser) it just doen't have enough surface area.

Entraining Hydrogen (a bit of mumbo jumbo if you ask me) is the explanation of the water bike. Judging by its obvious starting issue and low power the resulting combustible from Ryan's process requires a very low compression low RPM engine. (no way it's stock). All I can figure is he is using some type of cat to boost the combustibility of water. I'm also betting that a "new bike" filled with water may have to sit a spell (over night?!) while the cat works it's magic on the water. Ryan also modified a Toyota Land cruiser to run on 40% water and 60% mineral waste oil. Not the same thing so I suspect he is relying on the high power to weight ratio of the bike and the small displacement to make his system "work"..

The legends are many of the 100MPG carburettor and the water engines. No surprise that these great inventions come from "regular" guys.
All they need is a guarded ("can't show you that until the patent is approved!!") prototypes and a news crew. As StevieB pointed out the scientific community needs peer review (as well as grant money, etc). They are welcome to patent them. And as in a previous thread I think many educated engineers and chemists are blinded by their own science to possibilities. On the subject of oil company ninjas taking some of these guys out because of their inventions? I can believe it.. And honestly there is nothing preventing any one of us from inventing something that will solve the global energy crisis. I just haven't seen it happen yet.

[The CyberPoet]

In an effort to get one of your wonderful writeups, why are you skeptical?

BlackPeter hit most of the basic physics points already...
I do want to add that our nuke subs also use sterling motors as a secondary power-source, using a differential between the reactor water and the exterior water; and that the Germans are running a hydrogen-only sub now (the world's quietest sub to date) but the hydrogen is made on land and stored onboard for on-demand-use...

Let's say, for the sake of argument, that the patent I read really does work as described (and I'm 99.997% dubious here): that a steam of water molecules separated properly into individual tiny streams can be momentarily unbundled of it's molecular chains by a combination of spinning it's energy state into flux (literally adding power to it, in something akin to a plasma reaction) and then ripping it up through a combination of ultrasonic and magnetic manipulation, to give you the (2)O2 +1(H2) separated for a period in the order of 1/1000th of a second [or less if I recall right] before it wants to recombine back into H2O by collapse of the higher energy state (and the shedding of the extra energy). And that all of this can be done with a net-energy-gain if you can detonate the resulting output within the required time-frame in an internal combustion engine...

Then the following questions would still remain:
(A) Can you deliver sufficient streams of ripped molecules into the combustion chamber within a small enough time-window to permit sufficient detonation force to make it worthwhile -- while at the same time ensuring that the device(s) is(are) small enough to rip the solutions right at the point of entry into the detonation chamber AND that the device(s) can handle the exposure to the heat and pressure of the detonation?
(B) How fast would the detonation event have to happen in order to exploit this very, very small time-window before recombination of the atoms into their standard molecular form? Is the device continuing to add combustible material after the combustion event started?
(C) And the single most critical question: if such a device existed, would it not make far better sense to initially capitalize it on devices that were stationary (i.e. - generators & heating systems) and had massive financial backing behind them to buy it in bulk (power companies, military)? I know the engineering would be a @%$&-load simpler to just make the device(s) run continuously with a candle-like flame instead of exposed in a vehicle's detonation chamber system, and have those [now stationary] flames heating water (to drive steam turbine generators). It makes zero sense to target a tiny vehicle like a motorcycle or even a car with the first-release of the product, both from an engineering and from a fiscal investment point of view.

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Now, all that said, I am I utterly convinced that there is no method under the sun by which water can be unbundled without a net-energy loss? No. I believe that there are certain cutting-edge nano-physics technologies which may be able to be exploited to permit just such a thing to be done, esp. with the presence of small amounts of heavy water found in most water sources. The question here is at what price-point and with what maximum potential output volume (compared to size)?

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Perhaps the real question we ought to be asking is why don't our vehicles pre-heat our existing fuels into vapors before delivery into the combustion chamber for maximum efficiency? Yes, a hot engine vaporizes much of the fuel, aided by very fine spray-pattern injectors, but why aren't we delivering vapors directly instead?

Cheers,
=-= The CyberPoet

[BarMatt80]

water isn't exactly cheap either, nor abundant. Now before you jump on me and say the world is covered mostly by water, but how much of that water is actually usuable in this so called water engine? Places barely have enough water to sustain life let alone life and toys. And a dasani or aquafina, $1.50 or so for 20 oz.?