[BITList] SALT WATER....

Sat Apr 2 04:59:28 BST 2011

wrt salwater.wmv

running you car on sea water.

this nutty notion comes around from time to time............

regretabley it is still not possible.

ct

From: John Feltham 
Sent: Friday, April 01, 2011 9:59 PM
To: Undisclosed recipients:
Subject: [BITList] SALT WATER....

Chemical energy content of water
The energy content of fuels is often represented by the heat of combustion, measured by burning a fuel in oxygen. A value in joules, for example, cannot even be given to water as it does not burn in oxygen and does not produce any heat. Water is a low-energy, stable compound that is produced from the oxidation of high-energy substances such as molecular hydrogen or hydrocarbons. Spontaneous chemical reactions are the types of reactions that can be utilized to release energy for useful work. In spontaneous chemical reactions, the reactants will be higher in energy than the products. When fossil fuels are burned, the hydrogen is oxidized to water, releasing its stored energy, and the carbon is oxidized to carbon dioxide, another low-energy compound.

This spontaneous reaction can be represented with the following chemical equation: CnHm + (n + m/4) O2 → n CO2 + m/2 H2O.

Nonspontaneous chemical reactions do not release energy, and energy must be provided for the reactions to take place. These types of reactions store energy. An example is the electrolysis of water, a process that consumes energy and produces molecular hydrogen which represents a store of chemical energy.

Proponents of water-fuelled cars point out the abundance and low cost of water; however, water is such an abundant chemical compound in part because it has very stable bonds that resist most reactions. Water will not even burn in oxygen, although it will burn with fluorine as an electron acceptor.[9] Because fluorine is so reactive, however, most of it has been converted to a fluoride, and producing fluorine would also require energy. For water to participate in a reaction that releases energy, high energy compounds must be added. For example, it is possible to generate the combustible fuel acetylene by adding calcium carbide to water. However, the calcium carbide, a high-energy material, is the 'fuel,' not water. Under conditions common on Earth, chemical energy cannot be extracted from water alone.[6][7] (It is theoretically possible to extract nuclear energy from water by fusion, but fusion power plants of any scale remain impractical, and no allegedly water-fuelled cars are claimed to be powered by fusion.)

[edit] Electrolysis
See also: Electrolysis of water
Many alleged water-fuelled cars obtain hydrogen or a mixture of hydrogen and oxygen (sometimes called "oxyhydrogen", "HHO", or "Brown's Gas") by the electrolysis of water, a process that must be powered with electricity. The hydrogen or oxyhydrogen is then burned, supposedly powering the car and also providing the energy to electrolyse more water. The overall process can be represented by the following chemical equations:

  2H2O → 2H2 + O2 [Electrolysis step] 
  2H2 + O2 → 2H2O [Combustion step]
Since the combustion step is the exact reverse of the electrolysis step, the energy released in combustion exactly equals the energy consumed in the electrolysis step, and—even assuming 100% efficiency—there would be no energy left over to power the car. In other words, such systems start and end in the same thermodynamic state, and are therefore perpetual motion machines, violating the first law of thermodynamics. Furthermore, under actual conditions in which hydrogen is burned, efficiency is limited by the second law of thermodynamics and is likely to be around 20%.[10][11] More energy is therefore required to drive the electrolysis cell than can be extracted from burning the resulting hydrogen-oxygen mixture.

The oil companies must have paid him a few bucks!!   It won't be in my or your lifetime.

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The oil companies must have paid him a few bucks!!   It won't be in my or your lifetime.

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