Theres gasoline, diesel, LPG, and then gas and water...?

[Anonymous]

Theres a guy up here in Houston, Alaska that figured out how to make an engine run off of something like 20% gasoline and 80% water. its something like that, but i dont know the exact quantities.

Im sure someone here would be interested in it, so i thought id put it out there. I havent looked it up online to see if anyone else has done it before, but some one can see if they like.

This guy runs his generator off the mixture. He had to fabricate some type of intake manifold or something.

See waht you can find..its interseting to me and i would love to see how it works, but idont really knowthe guy, and its Houston AK, so yeah, i wont go there. But good luck to anyone.

Any questions welcome, but i dont know anything about it really.

 

[Anonymous]

I've never seen any information on the water-gasoline mix, but in AZ they run some busses on a diesel-water mix. I don't know the ratio but it's very successful.

John

 

[SuperMag]

Sounds like a load of it...

Consider that a typical gasoline engine in decent tune burns 98-99% of the gasoline inducted to generate its rated horsepower. In other words, to get "X" amount of horsepower you will need to burn "Y" amount of fuel.

Assuming the total ratio of air to inducted liquid remains the same: If he is replacing 80% of the gasoline inducted into the engine with water, the motor will not run at all. That would be too lean a mixture to support combustion (water does not burn)...

I might be inclined to believe the story if the proportion was the other way around, 80% gas, 20% water. In that case, the water would act as a combustion coolant, necessary for what would otherwise be a very lean mixture. Even still, power output would be down.

 

[Anonymous]

It could be the other way around...im not really sure. But from what i heard of it, he made a special intake inductiuon system to do it...i dont think its any ordinary intake induction setup...but i cant say anything cause ive never seen it....it could be totally fasle...just wondered if anyone else has heard of it before.

 

[SuperMag]

...just wondered if anyone else has heard of it before.

Many times. Every so often you hear stories of carburetors that yield 200 mpg, engines that crack the H2 and the O from water, using them as fuel, blah blah blah. Invariably the story ends with the oil companies killing the guy or buying the patent, or he gets kidnapped by the Saudis, or disappeared by the government. These stories get more airplay whenever there is a big spike in the price of gas....

http://www.snopes.com/autos/business/carburetor.asp

 

[Anonymous]

What actually provides the force in the cylinders, and I know I will get shot at for this, is the expansion of nitrogen found in the air. The gasoline/diesel/whatever mixed with oxygen provides the heat, and the nitrogen provides the force. That's why torpedoes use compressed AIR to supply the little diesel engine in them, not compressed oxygen. Now, if you increase the volume of expandable mass in the cylinder, as in add more air, there is more pressure to be had on the power stroke. By logic, adding anything to the cylinder that will expand when heated will make power. Water turns to steam. I don't know if it gets hot enough long enough to split the hyd and oxy, but if it did, that would mean even more power, providing all the expandable matter wasn't consumed in the process.

Jared

 

[SuperMag]

What are you talking about? I'm not even going to talk about the Nitrogen thing...

As far as inducted water is concerned; turning water to steam takes a tremendous amount of energy. In a combustion chamber it acts as a thermal energy consumer, not a producer...

 

[Anonymous]

Related article gleened from google:
http://www.geocities.com/blownrenault/winj1a.html

 

[TeddyXY71]

Then again..........I have seen a few websites that talk about this very thing, most aren't much chop, but there are a few interesting ones. I think the general idea is this; using the special inlet design (as said by Emerald 74 4X4) you can mix gasoline and water in a vapour form and actually get more fuel out than you put in. (well not really, just a re-arrangemnet of the molecular structures) Using exaust gas temperatures to do it, you can effectively "crack" the gasoline by combining it with the water. You end up with CO, H2, a bit of methanol, and a host of other smaller hydrocarbons. I think (don't quote me as I haven't got access to my text books) it is called a water-gas-shift reaction. You end up creating a gaseous fuel that can burn better than the normal fuel.

That, I think, is the extremely brief description of what could be happening. One important point is that you generally need some sort of surface or catalyst to get the water-shift reaction happening, nickel based metals are meant to be good. (Hence the special inlet maybe!) I did the thermodynamic calculations of what temperature is required to start the reaction between water and fuel (mainly to create CO and H2), and its well within reach of normal exaust temps! Maybe its not so looney after all.

I've always toyed with the thought of playing with water injection, steam injection, and the like, just never had the time to do some serious mucking about!

Just my 5 cents worth!

Teddy

 

[SuperMag]

Herr Doktor (and others),

You'll forgive me if I push this... Yes, the advantages of adding water to the vapor stream have been known for years, but in addition to the requisite amount of fuel. It allows advanced timing, higher compression, etc...

But a gallon of gasoline contains a known quantity of potential energy, namely 114,000 BTU (average). In the combustion process, this energy is released in three places; the flywheel, the tailpipe, and the radiator. Are you saying that there is actually more than 114K BTU available if some kind of catalytic process is induced?

 

[StrangeRanger]

Herr Doktor isn't talking about using water as some sort of catalyst, he's talking about inputting enough energy into the water and gasoline that you crack them, i.e. disassociate them into hydrogen, oxygen and simpler hydrocarbons, and allow the resultant bits and pieces to combust in air. The products of that combustion are apparently capable of liberating more energy than the combustion of gasoline and air plus the energy required to break things apart into the more useful pieces. I'm a Mech Eng not a Ch Eng so I'm not even going to guess at the details of what goes on. Define the process though and I will gladly design the process piping.

Off the top of my head, I'm guessing this has a lot more application to stationary engines where you can set up and maintain the conditions to operate the process in a steady state than it does to automotive engines.

 

[TeddyXY71]

SR, yes I think you're right, it would be better for stationary engines where conditions can be controlled quite tightly.

SuperMag, you are 100% correct to say there is only a finite amount of energy from a finite amount of fuel. But I suppose what I am saying is that you can harness more of the energy released from the fuel to get useful amounts of work out of it. The same amount of energy is there, its just transformed in such a fashion to work better. Theres a lot of energy sent straight down the tailpipe as very hot exhaust gas which is usually wasted. I suppose this method is just a way of trying to harness the heat in a more efficient manner.

But let me stress, I know there are lots of stories as to how this is done, but I personally haven't done it. I would like to try given some time, but that's not likely to happen in the near future. I know the theory behind the idea, but haven't got much in the way of practical experience. And as we all know theory and practice can be two totally different things........

Hope you all have a good day! (or night as it probably is over there!!)

Teddy