JCINTEXAS

Toy Car Runs on Water
The toymaker Corgi, has produced a remote-controlled car powered by hydrogen fuel technology. The H2Go, gets its power from tap water by separating the hydrogen from the oxygen.
The Shanghai company Horizon Fuel Cell Technologies in conjunction with Corgi developed the car and plans to extend the technology to household appliances.
The toy car which went on to show at the Nuremberg International Toy Fair, is touted as the first "zero emissions" remote-control toy.
http://www.shortnews.com/start.cfm?id=68292

MadManAndrew

Ya,thats not quite a first.Theres already a hydrogen airplane and hydrogen rockets that use regular tap water.They're pretty cool.I have the rocket.

hands without shadows

It doesn't run on water. It runs on the combustion of Hydrogen using Oxygen. The water is more like a battery, i.e. its charged (turned into gases) , used, and can then be "recharged."

"Runs on water" means the car gets its power from water or it drives over water. [link=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6MjySBPFCvw&NR=1]One of them has been done[/link], the other to my knowledge hasn't.

JCINTEXAS

__________________________________________________ _
Mmmmm. A question.
What is the raw fuel source put into the tank which this little car needs in order to run?

hands without shadows

A nuclear reaction or coal (depending on where you live) boils water and uses the steam to power turbines, which power generators, which generate electricty. That electricity is brought to your outlet and that outlet or an external battery (which is charged from an outlet) turns the water into gases, which the car burns to generate electricity, which it turns into movement. The whole process is horribly inefficient if you add up all the steps, which is why we probably wont be seeing Hydrogen powered cars anytime soon.

ASSOCIATED_DRIVER

Watch this one, Its really interesting.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Rb_rDkwGnU

I wonder what is the progress of their patent.

jombo

we need to start to re develope the steam engine , it can run a generator in turn run the car . the tecnology is there but untill a car manufacturer wants to spend money to develope it, its just not gonna happen.

Codeblack

yea, there's probably enough electrical energy waisted for hydrogen separation that they might as well start with electrical in the first place. it would probably work if they invented a convenient way to store pressurised hydrogen in gas (hydrogen) stations.

I remember reading about some US scientist who discovered how to ignite salt water.. many believe that will be the future fuel source since salt water is the most abundant substance in the world. Has anyone heard that before?

hands without shadows

"The flame instantly turns hotter than the surface of the sun." -Now I don't know much about anything beyond 2500 F, but wouldn't that torch light the atmosphere on fire? Fantastic Four says it would

hands without shadows

I read about that too. From what I remember when he exposed salt water to microwaves the water would release gas that could be ignited. There was no scientific explanation.

Xtfreak

Thats EXACTLY what I though, that it drives on the water

jtnktz

My Feedback: (4)

The oil companys will not allow this. It will put them out of business.

Our government also receives millions of dollars in taxes from oil companies.

Won't happen.

Grits

There was a spot on tv where a fellow dropped a piece of galinium in water which released hydrogen. Of course the result was hydrogen fuel from water and not actually using water as the fuel. The other issue, I guess, is what does galinium cost and where does one get it? It would be interesting to find a clean(green) and inexpensive fuel that would work at the rc level. Maybe developement and upscaling to 1:1 vehicles would follow. Think of the ad campaigns if someone developed an engine that ran on poo.

Grits

Well if someone develops a fuel not based on fossil fuel, they could rewrite history, or at least change it. The oil companies don't have a monoply on thinking and IF a new, green, inexpensive fuel source was developed I think the public would overthrow the oil companies. Taxes, that is an issue but like I said above, think about the poo source. I guess the government would have to try to come up with a way to tax poo?

TheTruckingGuru

Hmmm.... how about a hamster running inside a wheel to power your RC

Codeblack

I am pretty sure it will be rc that will follow, not the other way around

hands without shadows

I don't know if I agree with you there. How many vehicles do you see out there now that are brushless and Lipo powered?

About the poo comments - One 500+ cow dairy farm about 20km from my location built a methane power plant on site about a year ago. They now power all the barns, the house, and the grain elevator heater on "poo power" alone. Another 600+ cow dairy 5km from me is now doing the same thing.

Fr33ze

Truckers! Chime in if you've read this before!

One day while sitting in a husky truck stop, I grabbed a "trucking industry" news paper to pass the time till my breakfast arrived. In this paper I noticed an advertisement for a hydrogen "booster" unit that one could install on there desiel/gas/propane/natural gas powered rigs (aswell as normal vehicles) to decrease your fossil fuel usage by an avg 50%! And when installed on a 4 or 6 cylinder gas engine, your computerized fuel injection system will automaiticaly compensate, thus no need to re-program the ECU, and your car will virtually use NO gasloine! The unit uses normal tap water and sepperates the hydrogen from the oxygen "on-the-fly" via electrolisis (which is powered by the alternator), then feeds the UNPRESSUREIZED hydrogen into the air intake to supplement the conventional fuel system. No need to have a pressureised tank to store the hydrogen, and no need to go to a gas station to re-fuel, no need for expensive conversions for current day vehicles.

Here are the 2 REAL reasons we dont use hydrogen as a fuel source:

1. Unsafe to transport (hydrogen bomb)
2. Costs too mush to produce as a consumer based "pay to pump" service like our current gas stations, and at the pump you would be paying 3 times more then regular gas rates.

If the oil industry cant use it to make profit, it wont happen...

I ask you all, why should the oil industry dictate the future of humanity? Who gave them the golden key to the world?

One word..... MONEY!

So only when they run out of money will we get out of this crazy situation and move on to the greater things we are capable of.

BTW, these hydrogen units range from $4500 to $7500 USD!

Just my 2 cents...

racerj3

Actually, there is something like that already. A company makes generators that use poop to produce methane, and they burn methane to generate electricity. Also there are a few engines for vehicles that run off of methane and propane. But why is anybody even worried about alternative fuel anyways? Hydrogen, ethanol, etc., are all smokecreens from the oil companies. I say lets just upscale brushless motors and Lipoly's and go from there, and of your worried about runtime theres a company developing a magnesium nanophosphate lithium battery, that will recharge in 5 minutes, and have greater runtime than any battery so far used in 1:1 electric cars.

RCtruckRacer

I have to agree this is a fad. Unless some new technology comes to fruition, or we find some new physics laws, hydrogen will never be a good source of fuel.

Several weeks back a member posted in the off topic forums about hydrogen electrolosys. It was an interesting thread and caused me to look further into the subject. I found this:
[link]http://planetforlife.com/h2/h2swiss.html[/link]

I have to disagree with the statement above - the two reasons hydrogen won't ever be a viable fuel source;

Hydrogen is not completely unsafe to transport - a hydrogen bomb, also known as a thermonuclear bomb is not wholly composed of hydrogen. It uses hydrogen in a fusion reaction which then triggers a fission reaction of plutonium/uranium. A burst tank of liquid hydrogen would be a big problem however.

Cost of production isn't that bad, its transportation that would cost too much. In the article I referenced it states:
"A 40 ton truck can deliver 26 tons of gasoline to a conventional gasoline filling station. One daily delivery is sufficient for busy station. A 40 ton truck carrying compressed hydrogen can deliver only 400 kilograms."

Its a nice idea. Hopefully we can find an alternate fuel source soon. Most estimates I have read shows we will run out of fossil fuels in the next 20-30 years. At the very least fossil fuel will become prohibitavely expensive in the future, even if we don't run out.

chedster

Not entirely true, Hydrogen can be extracted from other fuels such as diesel, which is not that great in a sense that it is a limited resource. But I have been to a local business that makes fuel cells and the technology is growing rapidly. Their fuel cells usually go to Europe for houses and back up power sources, The technology is new and is going to improve greatly. Trust me as gas prices go up other energy sources will start to seem a whole lot more reasonable.

125cchyperman

Well Methanol alcohol has already started to come into play. Although we need twice as much alcohol to run a engine then regular gasoline, it's still a viable alternative solution to the fossil fuel problem. And you only need to have your ECU reprogrammed and maybe a hose or two changed over, we run alcohol in our 125cc Honda RS engine right now and the only thing we needed to change was jets and thats it. Cars are already starting to run on E85 and a lot of fuel pumps around here are already starting to add up to as much as 10% methanol to the fuel that we use.

We also run 600,750 and 1000cc enigne's on methanol alcohol with no problem, just need to reprogram the ecu and need to switch injectors. But thats all that we do, to go from gasoline to Methanol alcohol. And they produce more power, a stoc R6 on gasoline will make around 109-112hp, on methanol they jump to as high as 128hp.

carmatic

the thing is, how fuel cells work is they take oxygen from the air, and react it with hydrogen which you supply, to give electricity
now getting the hydrogen into the car to run it is the main problem, but at the RC scale you might be able to fit just enough in over-the-counter containers to make sense of this whole idea... a smaller container can be less complicated and alot safer than one large drum of compressed hydrogen or what have you
theyre talking about getting the hydrogen to be soaked into certain types of metals, kind of like an atomic sponge , so that instead of having hydrogen under pressure, its locked inside this piece of metal which you heat it or whatever to release the hydrogen...
one thing it wont be is cheap, tho, like the section where the hydrogen and oxygen actually react is made of some exotic ceramic stuff or something, and then the whole thing has to be submerged in electrolyte something like a battery...
maybe the fuel cell is actually a small hydrogen store as well? like once you open it up, the only things you'll get out of it is pure water and electricity, when it runs out you get all green and stuff and send it back to them to be recycled...

novak62

that is sweet, probably doesnt go too fast though.[8D]

FrostByte25

I got one of these sittin around my house somewhere...pretty cool little car.. I might have to make a video to show how it works...