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IrC
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[*] posted on 29-8-2008 at 08:49
Run-Your-Car-With-Water


Running Your Car On Water

I keep seeing this advertising, and decided to ask what the rest of you think about it. As for myself, I do not see how there can be a gain. IIRC I remember someone in another thread a few years ago stating the energy used to disassociate water was greater than that gained by recombining the gasses. If so, would not the horsepower load being used by the alternator be more than the H.P. gained by burning the gas mix in the engine? This website seems to me to be just another money scam but I am curious what the community here thinks about this idea.

Had to change the link since the one that worked two days ago appears to have vanished. I imagine that answered my question since a real legitimate company should have lasted at least a week online?


[Edited on 8-29-2008 by IrC]
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[*] posted on 29-8-2008 at 11:42


From what I can gather, the idea is to improve the combustion efficiency of the ICE, rather than gain additional energy from the combustion of the H2 and O2 generated in the cell. The latter is clearly impossible, but if the petrol/air combustion efficiency was somehow improved and the overall efficiency went from say, 25% to 30% that would be a good achievment.

There have been several high profile tests here in NZ recently, both the Automobile Association and on TV. None showed any fuel savings under properly controlled conditions!

http://www.stuff.co.nz/northland/4619069a22378.html

There have in fact been several cases of homemade cells exploding and catching fire.

Give it a miss and build an electric car, its pretty simple!

http://www.kiwiev.com/

[Edited on 29-8-2008 by Xenoid]
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[*] posted on 29-8-2008 at 12:04


I too have puzzled over these magical water powered car claims. I agree, you can't split water efficiently at this point (I think this will come soon though, given that plants can do it from light). How, though, can adding water to a combustion of gasoline improve efficiency? An adiabatic expansion would be the most efficient, where no energy is dissipated the block/head etc. as heat. It seems to me that water requires quite a great deal of energy (thermal) to change phases, and would essentially absorb heat from the combustion. In fact, I used to have a water injection on a turbocharged car of mine, the purpose of which was to lower combustion temperatures. Overall, not quite sticking a garden hose in ones gas tank! Haha.
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[*] posted on 29-8-2008 at 12:13


Water injection increases the octane (why should be obvious).

I've heard of a six-cycle engine which improves efficiency with a third stroke where water is injected, expanded (to steam) and exhausted. Supposedly it gives excellent results, although I bet it doesn't fare as well on water-cooled engines.

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[*] posted on 29-8-2008 at 14:56


6 cycles - I can see how that could work - not only extracting some of the waste heat as mechanical power, but operating the combustion cycle (cool cylinders) at an overall lower temperature should improve efficiency a bit. It would require very clean water though!

Adding hydrogen to the fuel fix in a standard engine may alter the burn characteristics, but I'd be willing to bet that the engine would need to be specifically designed to take advantage of the change. I doubt adding this to an exisiting engine would do much.




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[*] posted on 29-8-2008 at 19:24


OK Tim, I see where slowing down the burn is equivalent to octane boosting, and I can see using the extra cycle to produce power from what would be wasted heat seems logical. I imagine the extra drag and friction wasted in the extra cycle should reduce any gains a lot however. Question is I remember reading long ago something about carnot cycle which lead me to believe the hotter the engine is the greater the efficiency. Since you and most out here are closer to your college years (meaning you remember more of it) can you say if the hotter the better idea is correct?
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[*] posted on 29-8-2008 at 22:39


The Carnot limit defines the maximum efficiency of a heat engine. It is related to the difference in the hot and cold temperatures, eff = 1 - (T_cold/T_hot) with temperature expressed on an absolute scale such as Kelvin. As the limit on the cold side temperature is generally reached first, being the ambient temperature, pushing the hot side temperature up is the easy way to increase efficiency. Real world heat engines don't reach the Carnot limit for a number of reasons; large, high compression, slow speed marine diesels can hit 50% efficiency - about as good as any single cycle system does.

The 3rd cycle with its injection of water is similar to the combined cycle power plant, where fuel is burned to drive a gas turbine, then the exhaust stream used to generate steam to turn another turbine in a Rankine cycle. This can boost overall efficiencies of such power plants to 60% or higher.
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[*] posted on 30-8-2008 at 17:50


" Running on water " implies being powered by it, which is fraud.
The stanley steamer " ran on water " and it got lousy fuel mileage.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanley_Steamer


Quote:
Originally posted by 12AX7
I've heard of a six-cycle engine which improves efficiency with a third stroke where water
is injected, expanded (to steam) and exhausted. Supposedly it gives excellent results,
although I bet it doesn't fare as well on water-cooled engines.
Here's that post
http://www.sciencemadness.org/talk/viewthread.php?tid=6285&a...


Quote:
Originally posted by not_important
The 3rd cycle with its injection of water is similar to the combined cycle power plant,
where fuel is burned to drive a gas turbine, then the exhaust stream used to generate
steam to turn another turbine in a Rankine cycle. This can boost overall efficiencies
of such power plants to 60% or higher.
The gotcha is complexity and expense, why this sort of cascading
of temperature differentials is only seen in stationary power plants.
The cheaply implimented conversion of an existing engine design
is what makes this a worthwhile concept - above link to that post

The opening post of this thread and the link it provided affords no
technical information to assess validity of claims. I would venture
to say that if water aerosol is injected into the cylinders after ignition
of the carburated mixture, that it would reduce the temperature
enough that less heat will transfer to the engine cylinder and will
instead do positive work expanding against the piston.
This is only my surmise of what this might be.

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[*] posted on 30-8-2008 at 18:48


"The opening post of this thread and the link it provided affords no technical information to assess validity of claims." (franklyn)

When I made the thread the link did to some extent, talking about recombining the hydrogen and oxygen to add power, mentioning browns gas. Of course unless you spent the cash you did not get real tech info on the idea. No way would I invest in this so of course I could not offer more info. A day or two later I clicked on the link and it had vanished, forcing me to find another run your car on water ad to edit back in the post.

In any case if you need me to provide the data on creating hydrogen to use as fuel supplement you are not current enough on the subject to be of any use in answering my question. It is not about using water in the engine for other reasons such as detonation control (utilized in the 60's by buick), rather strictly about creating and burning hydrogen as fuel. Of course considerations of actual water injection at the same time for other reasons than being burned as fuel is also worthwhile.

Also it seems there is confusion to exactly what I was asking when I started this thread. The link I used did not say 100 percent water power, rather they were adding the burning of the gasses produced by electrolysis of a tank of water to the power produced by burning the gas in the tank (petrol).

I will search for a better website and edit the link in the first post a second time, hopefully this time the new site will stay in existence longer than 2 days?

In any case what I was asking the board was do you agree with me that the idea must be crap to start with or is there some technical thing I do not know about which actually makes the use of electrical power produced by a gas (petrol) burning engine to disassociate water, then adding the gas mixture into the intake with the gas (petrol) to add power (thereby increasing fuel mileage) a viable idea?

Myself I do not think so but I was interested in what the SCM community thought about it. Since the world is headed into real trouble over the increasing costs of fuel I was thinking this thread would be of some use, seeing as I believe people like us may actually help find alternative energy if we take the time to think and talk about the subject. For this reason I thought this was a viable Technochemistry post rather than something belonging in whimsy or detritus.

As example is there some catalyst which would reduce the electrical power needed to break water apart, thereby actually giving an energy gain that is not some hopeless perpetual motion scheme?

I can no longer edit my starting post so I will add the new link here:

run your car with water

This is an example of the type discussion I was hoping for:

Why will hho or browns gas not improve your mpg?

The last link says to me that creating electrical power by drawing some of the horsepower to create fuel is a "greater loss than gain" method of gaining power by water annihilation and re-creation. So I wonder about the very great loss of heat as waste. Can some catalyzed cell method utilizing exhaust heat be devised to dis-associate H2O? Turbochargers use this heat with great efficiency, so why not hydrogen production. In this way a large amount of extra fuel can be created for free so long as the engine is running, using energy which was already given up for dead anyway. I think this idea at least deserves research, if we really are trying to come up with means to reduce our need for petroleum.



[Edited on 8-31-2008 by IrC]
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[*] posted on 31-8-2008 at 01:28


This is a topic that refuses to remain staked throught the heart and like
dracula is always rising from the grave.

Here is a post from another thread just like this one
http://www.sciencemadness.org/talk/viewthread.php?tid=5923&a...

Please pay a visit to this site, practically anything you may want to know on
this subject is rationally explained here -> http://www.tinaja.com/h2gas01.asp

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[*] posted on 31-8-2008 at 03:02


"This is a topic that refuses to remain staked throught the heart and like dracula is always rising from the grave."

Problem is this outlook is pointless and does not add to the discussion. If you do not want to talk (or read) about the subject then don't. I am sure others exist who may be interested. Four dollar/gallon gas is a good motivator to start looking at every possible means of reducing the amount of fuel we need to buy.

There is no point in attaching this thread to another that died over two years ago, one which no one is looking at anymore.

Lancaster is focused on disproving fakes on the subject, and does not bother to look at any useful bits of technology there may be. There is no reason to focus solely on over-unity claims, what is important is the question of gaining any power from energy being wasted already. I would think any extra energy gained is going to decrease overall fuel usage. He looks at storage problems and declares the science useless due to technical difficulties without thinking about on the fly methods. Controlling the power to produce hydrogen as loads demand brings storage problems under control.

Since we are all presently trapped into needing petroleum to live the reasons to start talking about every possibility which could free us from this dependency are even greater than they have ever been. Hopefully someone interested may have something to say about the hydrogen question.


[Edited on 8-31-2008 by IrC]
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[*] posted on 31-8-2008 at 05:14


How about adding a component alcohol such that it carries H2 and is released when the alcohol ignites at temps of 75-80C ,hence releasing the hydrogen and and it's energy payload........i know it's a simplistic idea but an idea to maybe improve on or spark a better one.................solo



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[*] posted on 31-8-2008 at 10:44


Not to turn this thread into a political diatribe, but some off topic non-technical
reality is called for here. Can a small startup sell an idea to the gullible and unwary,
sure but that's as far as it goes. Is this a process or method that will be financed
by a bank ? If the answer is no then it will not become commercialized. Money can
be equated to stores of energy , if the balance sheet is red , the idea is bankrupt.

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[*] posted on 31-8-2008 at 19:35


Quote:
Originally posted by IrC

As example is there some catalyst which would reduce the electrical power needed to break water apart, thereby actually giving an energy gain that is not some hopeless perpetual motion scheme?



Yes there are catalysts. Platinum helps on the hydrogen side, cobalt oxide helps on the oxygen side. IIRC the best electrolysers, using proton conducting membranes and fancy catalysts, can reach 80-85% efficiency. So you still lose (i.e. no free lunch).
The only way a scheme like this could be of use is if it somehow improves the combustion cycle - though I think the losses incurred in creating the H2 in the first place are likely to outweigh any benefits.

I suppose the other thing to consider is if it worked, given the price of oil these days, then car manufacturers would be all over it like flies on a dunghill. (conspiracy theories notwithstanding!)

[Edited on 1-9-2008 by Twospoons]




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[*] posted on 1-9-2008 at 15:01


There is no shortage of ideas of this type
http://fuelvapors.com/best/htm_demo/home.htm
http://fuelvapors.com/best/htm_demo/breakdown.htm
http://fuelvapors.com/best/htm_demo/special_patents.htm
Despite the much deserved harsh criticism of bogus and dead on arrival ideas
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water-fuelled_car
There is much opportunity and room for improvement of existing automotive
prime mover technology. The two most noteworthy are combined cycle and
adiabatic engine designs.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combined_cycle
The most promising combined cycle design ( In my opinion ) is the Crower six stroke
referenced above -> http://www.sciencemadness.org/talk/viewthread.php?tid=6285&a...
http://www.autoweek.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060227/...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crower_six_stroke
Patent number US 3964263
Enter both search terms together in Google "Bruce Crower" "Six-Stroke Engine"

A more famous contemporary of Crower was the late Smokey Yunick who championed
the Adiabatic engine. Realization of this hinges on the development of high temperature
resistant ceramics which as yet remain to be made. An intermediate design erroneously
confused with it which he developed, is the " Hot Vapor Cycle Engine ". This attempts to
recover some otherwise wasted heat by channeling it back into the intake. The mechanical
cycle however is poorly effective at converting the recycled heat into torque.
http://schou.dk/hvce/dia1.png
Patent numbers US 4503833 , US 4592329 , US 4862859
Enter both search terms together in Google "Smokey Yunick" "Hot Vapor Cycle Engine"
or instead these two terms together "Smokey Yunick" "Adiabatic engine"

The salient point here is that both these men have sterling careers in automotive
racing and are keenly able at extracting a little bit more efficiency from an engine.

List of Wikipedia resources
http://heihetech.com/relatedtech.html

Alternative fuels
Alcohol
http://www.fao.org/docrep/T4470E/t4470e08.htm
Wood gas
http://www.sciencemadness.org/talk/viewthread.php?tid=5923&a...

Here's one to crow about, the ultimate bio diesel " chicken shit ! "
what the hell they've tried everything else, rev up your Purdue mobile. :P
http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel_library/methane_bate.htm...

There are vast trackless expanses of desert which are intensely irradiated by the sun.
A promising area of research is the invention of a genetically engineered algae which
can exude a fuel , perhaps hydrogen , in covered shallow pools in these otherwise
useless regions.
The most promising ( in my opinion ) outlook for new renewable energy, is the
invention of genetically engineered bacteria which can degrade plant cellulose
in the same way that carbohydrates are fermented to produce alcohol.

.
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[*] posted on 1-9-2008 at 16:18


Good point. I think I should have been more general rather than focusing on hydrogen alone. While I have long thought Lancaster is too jaded, he does make a good point on the low energy content from hydrogen.

I remember a site which documented a couple who tool around in a crap burning van. To avoid layovers when they were waiting for pressure to build in their storage tank, he had set it up so it would also run on petrol. I cannot imagine going around asking farmers for pigshit once a week so I think the idea is not a very good one. However farmers could use this to reduce the petrol needs for running the farm? Recently I read where people in china have perfected transforming sawdust into fuel using bacteria.

I still wonder if ways can be found to use the waste exhaust heat. One idea is a tourmaline crystal generator which adds power to the electrical system, reducing the alternator"s horsepower load on the engine.
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[*] posted on 1-9-2008 at 20:56


Quote:
As example is there some catalyst which would reduce the electrical power needed to break water apart, thereby actually giving an energy gain that is not some hopeless perpetual motion scheme?


You can reduce the power needed, but it will always take more power to make the H2 & O2 than you can recover from combining them. The Three Law hate everyone.

Quote:
I still wonder if ways can be found to use the waste exhaust heat. One idea is a tourmaline crystal generator which adds power to the electrical system, reducing the alternator"s horsepower load on the engine.


Thermo/pyro electric converters are generally not very efficient, tourmaline is poor within the pyroelectric class of materials. Most of these are very high impedance materials - generating high voltages at very low current .

Thermoelectric materials are a better match, producing low voltage at moderate currents. They have been used in the automotive heat recovery application, the power generated is not great - 250 watts when driving 180 KPH.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automotive_Thermoelectric_Gener...

Automotive engines, be they Otto or Diesel cycle, have less than optimal efficiency because of they way the are used. Running an engine over a wide range of speeds and loads makes it difficult to optimise efficiency, especially when trying to provide high torque at loads speeds for starting moving. The power train connecting motor and wheels, and matching wheel spped to the motor, wastes a fair percent of the engine's output.

The hybrid electric vehicle (serial configuration) is an easier way to boost efficiency, run a combustion engine at a fixed speed and load and tune it for that. It produces ore power than is needed to move the vehicle at cruising speed, charges batteries with the excess power, and shuts down when the batteries are charge. Use ultracapacitors for regenerative braking and acceleration, power recovery runs 60 to 80 percent for this application. Use wheel-motors, getting rid of the transmission and rest of the power train, where conventional automobiles loose much of the power from the engine. Electric motors provide maximum torque at low speeds, where it is needed, in-wheel motors means simple anti-slip/skid control. Mileage in a serial hybrid runs 2 to 3 times higher than a conventional automobile of similar performance.
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[*] posted on 2-9-2008 at 04:25
Where there's a will , there's a way


Power plant burners spray coal powder with compressed air as a torch.
Solid fuels are not as easy to meter as liquids however which is why
paraffin's are the fuel of choice for internal combustion engines. A simple
means of converting coal into a liquid fuel is just to blend the powder
into a colloid with a fluid, this has in fact been done using water, and is
an adequate substitute for diesel fuel. Any hydrocarbon will do as well,
the concentration of carbon only affects the viscosity. This is an available
means which requires zero technology. You can do this yourself with
charcoal briquettes in a kitchen blender and filtering for particle size.
It might be advantageous to spike a water mix with something like
ammonium nitrate to promote better combustion.
Consider the price advantage :
The national average price of ethanol in July was 3.30 a gallon 17.5%
less than unleaded gas which was selling at 4 dollars a gallon. That's
1006 dollars per ton of ethanol ( 304 gallons ), 1360 dollars per ton of
gasoline ( 340 gallons ). Diesel costs 12% more than gasoline which
comes to 1344 dollars a ton ( 300 gallons ).
Petroleum is now at 140 dollars per barrel, roughly 300 pounds of it,
comes to 930 dollars per ton of crude ( 280 gallons ). Bituminous coal
has skyrocketed from 70 dollars a ton last year to a current 185 dollars
a ton and its heat value is much higher than any of the other fuels.
Ammonium nitrate is currently 550 dollars per ton. This means one can
blend an equivalent fuel to power a diesel engine for 1/7 the cost.
Supposing a blend by weight of
80% coal . . . . 148 dollars
12% water . . . . .0
8% NH4NO3 . . . 44 dollars

That's less than 200 dollars per ton of fuel

If anyone thinks I'm full of shit, hold that thought while you' re digging
in your pocket at the gas pump


http://oai.dtic.mil/oai/oai?verb=getRecord&metadataPrefi...

http://www.patentstorm.us/patents/5482517/description.html

http://resources.metapress.com/pdf-preview.axd?code=q83cdp4p...

http://cat.inist.fr/?aModele=afficheN&cpsidt=15398838

http://www.energy.psu.edu/tes/cwsfcomb.html

.
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[*] posted on 2-9-2008 at 05:59


That is for use in power plants and utility scale boilers, both of which have active plants burning plain powdered coal today. Trying to do that on the scale of an automobile engine is another story.

There's another aspect that is important when using coal as fuel. The composition of bituminous coal by percentage is roughly:
carbon [C], 75–90
hydrogen [H], 4.5–5.5
nitrogen [N], 1–1.5
sulfur [S], 1–2
oxygen[O], 5–20
ash, 2–10
moisture, 1–10

The sulfur produces sulfur oxides, power plants scrub their exhaust to remove this. The ash content is abrasive and erodes surfaces, a coal burning boiler is a relatively simple mechanical system, an internal combustion engine with its pistons and valves is another story. Again, fly ash is removed from the exhaust of coal fired plants; fitting a moving vehicle with such a cleanup system is hardly "zero technology".

And the cleanup is necessary. The SOx from coal burning in British cities greatly accelerated corrosion of building stone, causing more erosion to Roman era construction in decades than had taken place in centuries before coal burning became common. Higher temperature combustion eliminates the soot and tars of simple coal fires, but the acid oxides and ash contribute to the formation and persistence of fogs. I suspect you're too young to remember Los Angeles or London of the 1950s, but a visit to China today will provide examples to study.
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[*] posted on 2-9-2008 at 11:38


All very true not_important, coal ore is dirty at best, so use metallurgical grade
coke instead. Of course the price of that commodity follows on the heels of the
price of coal, and so Chinese export coke has gone from less than 200 dollars last
year, to around 500 dollars a ton now ( China is the largest coke producer in the
world, accounting for 60 percent of world production in 2007 ).
In place of ethanol, convert wood to charcoal, this is in fact what had been done
in situ with automotive wood gas generators, during the fuel rationing in world war II,
and those are anything but clean. So is it as former President Jimmy Carter declared
" the moral equivalent of war " or not, cough, cough.
http://www.bartleby.com/73/526.html
P.S.
New York was smogged well into the 1970's

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[*] posted on 3-9-2008 at 00:32


Coke costs more than coal, and the ash content is higher than the coal it is made from. Metallurgical coke is made from lower ash coals, but this raises to price even higher. Coke is also harder than coal, significantly increasing wear in both the crushing and combustion mechanism. A major overhaul in engine design would be needed.

Biofuels in most regions are not available in significant quantity to support the level of vehicle fuel consumption of the U.S. Most plants are not that good at producing fixed carbon, somewhere between 0,25 and 3 percent of the solar energy ends up in carbon compounds. Sugar cane reaches 8% or higher under optimal conditions, but sustained production at that level does not seem practical without application of fertilisers which consume energy in their production. Algae can do better, but so far no commercial process has emerged. For most crops, including fast growing woody plants and trees, the area of land needed to supply fuel needs is huge, a significant portion of the arable land would be taken up. And the charcoal produced has a fairly high ash content, so you still have those problems.

At the rates of solar energy fixing of plants you'd do better generating electricity from sunlight, photovoltaic or thermal power plant doesn't matter, using that to electrolyze water to make hydrogen, convert the H2 to ammonia to use as fuel. Liquid ammonia has 50% greater hydrogen density (volumetric) the liquid H2 and is a good deal easier to deal with. The complexes of NH3 with MgCl2 or CaCl2 have almost as great a volumetric storage density but much lower vapour pressures; the NH3 is released by heating - waste heat from the engine can be used. Ammonia can be used in IC engines when mixed with roughly 10% of a hydrocarbon such as methane or propane; the engine actually has a slightly higher energy output. You'd get more fuel per area of land dedicated to sunlight collection, without the input in water and fertiliser. And you avoid the problems with handling solid-liquid suspensions, as well as not having to deal with combustion ash.

Wartime conditions are not the best comparison. First, they only existed for a few years; sustainability issues didn't have time to arise. Second, the boom in private automobile use in the U.S. did not occur until after WW-II; a much percentage of transportation was provided by train and public transit, and the average trip in private cars was shorter than now by a significant amount.
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[*] posted on 3-9-2008 at 16:27


The gas turbine ( Brayton cycle ) was explored briefly but due to lower fuel mileage
has been disregarded.This can burn almost anything without any problem , and used
in an electric hybrid drive can be operated at its optimal power point circumventing
it's major drawback, it's narrow power curve. There is no one solution to energy
provision, every economic resource will need to be exploited, which means what
makes sense over here, may not over there. ( note Iceland is uniquely gifted with
exploitable geothermal resources.)
Ammonia saturated methanol as fuel in a molar ratio of 1 NH3 to 3 CH3OH , 15 % sol.
may make sense as both are already industrially co-produced. Like everything else at
the moment commodities are at all time highs but proportionally priced, ammonia is at
750 dollars a ton, methanol is 580 dollars a ton. Compared to gasoline, the energy
value is comparable on a cost basis too so no economic gain here.

.
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IrC
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[*] posted on 3-9-2008 at 18:25


If an old chrysler turbine engine design incorporated some type of high tech modern blades which could take the ash without pitting could the coal - water slurry run one?

Chrysler_Turbine_Car
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Rosco Bodine
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[*] posted on 3-9-2008 at 20:20


With overpopulation being a genuine pressure on available resources, recycling of course is a possible
solution.

Soylent Green is possibly *both* an ideal food
and fuel of the future ;)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ghXf1qjEkWY&feature=relat...
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not_important
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[*] posted on 3-9-2008 at 20:55


Quote:
Originally posted by IrC
If an old chrysler turbine engine design incorporated some type of high tech modern blades which could take the ash without pitting could the coal - water slurry run one?


Burning coal like that is a bad idea. The SOx emissions would be horrible, and fall well outside permitted levels in many countries. The heavy metals released likely aren't something you want drifting into your lungs or onto your food. There's a reason newer coal plants have considerable processing of the flue gases.

Coal fired power plants often burn the coal in cyclone burners or a fluidised bed to heat a boiler. Direct turbine use of coal fuel does not seem to done, there have been a number of attempts to make them practical but little success. Their design is different than a more conventional gas turbine, limestone is mixed with the coal, which is burned in a fluidised bed combustion chamber, and there is equipment to collect some of the fly ash from the exhaust. All this makes them considerably larger and heavier than engines using other fuels.

There are small commercial turbines out there
http://www.microturbine.com/prodsol/products/index.asp

Their efficiency runs 20 to 35 percent, about the same as an Otto and a bit less than a Diesel when running over a restricted range of power output (as in serial hybrid applications)



Quote:
Originally posted by franklyn
Ammonia saturated methanol as fuel in a molar ratio of 1 NH3 to 3 CH3OH , 15 % sol. may make sense as both are already industrially co-produced.


Methanol is made from syngas, which in turn is made from natural gas or coal and water.

Ammonia currently uses hydrogen from syngas, but can use electrolytic hydrogen and there are test systems that use electricity, water, and nitrogen in sort of reversed ammonia fuel cell. The later runs at much lower pressures than the Haber-Bosch plants, meaning lower plant cost, and use less power overall per kg of ammonia produced.

So ammonia can be made using alternative sources of electric power, which are dropping in cost (wind is about as cheap as coal and may have dropped lower with the run-up in coal prices). You would want your fuel to be as high in ammonia as practical, to decouple it from rising fossil fuel prices. Thus the 90% NH3 + 10% hydrocarbon mix.
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