I've been sketching and conceptualising various kinds of self-sustaining engines to drive vehicles.

Recently I was sketching concepts for a Bicopter and started wondering how it's engine could be self-sustained.
Then I sketched this in Paint:


The engine runs on Hydrogen. Combusting Hydrogen, the engine creates drive and water vapor exhaust gasses.
As the engine's Drive Shaft passes through a large Dynamo, it also generates electricity, which is stored
in the rechargable Battery Cell. The water vapor exhaust gases are aircooled and then further cooled in
the Condenser, powered by the Battery Cell, until it is liquid again and allowed to drip back into the Electrolytic Cell.

The Electrolytic Cell is also powered by the Battery Cell and Electrolyses the water back into Hydrogen to feed back into
the Hydrogen Fuel Tank, to in turn be fed back into the Hydrogen Engine. The Oxygen that the Electrolysis creates can be
discarded as exhaust gas or added to the Fuel Tank to burn Fuel more efficiently. (I'm not a Pyrochemist so I'm not sure)

Any tips, objections, corrections and/or directions, Anyone?

Wow.

This is very cool. It always occurred to me that there were many ways to re-harvest some of the energy being generated by various engines, generators, turbines etc. I came up with a hydrogen harvesting idea that worked like an offshore oil rig, scooping up sea water and using the tides and waves to create electricity enough to perform electrolysis.

Your idea could easily be fitted onto a vehicle. It won't be a true perpetual motion machine, but it could be amazingly fuel efficient. One could throw in some solar panels, let wind from the grill turn a fan, recapture electricity from braking or even more esoteric sources of power. Perhaps with a large enough battery and an electric motor as well, you could make a hybrid vehicle that could cross the country on a single tank of hydrogen...

We can dream anyway.

Allthough I didn't enclude it into my design, I think 1 or more steam-driven dynamos could actually generate a decent & constant stream of electricity too
if the turbine blades on their axis(es) were driven by presurised exhaust steam. That electricity, combined with the electricity that the large Dynamo around
the engine's Drive Axis generates should be enough to cool & recondense the watervapor to liquid and to electrolyse that liquid water back into Hydrogen gas.
And the circle is round.

I would like to build a miniature version of this design. Guess the first thing I'd need is a small engine that (can) run(s) on hydrogen gas.
Maybe a small gas-engine of a Radio Controlled car/plane/helicopter? Anyone who knows where I can buy such engines; let me know.
Or would it be possible to build a simple one myself?

Between the poor efficiency of electrolysis cells and the poor efficiency of hydrogen combustion/high cost of fuel cells, we need to think more about mass power for electrolysis. Your idea as proposed isn't wrong at all, its just that our current technologies for such components just are not at all efficient.

While I'm sure we'll be able to work better with hydrogen in the future, we should try to harvest more nuclear energy and then simply use that to produce hydrogen fuel. That's still energy deficient but it's the only viable solution to petrol in 2011.

Could the efficiency of hydrogen combustion be improved by adding a little oxygen to the fuel-mix? It also comes out of the electrolysis so it may as well be used.
And why would electrolytic cells be inefficient? I've seen a guy with a home made electrolytic cell electrolyse water using no more than peddling power and a dynamo
to power the electrolytic cell. Alot of bubbles were produced by just a minute of pedalling.

So hooking up the electrolytic cell to a large dynamo driven by the main driveshaft should defenitely be enough to refill the fuel tank with hydrogen.
If this works it doesn't matter if it cannot deliver astounding results. If it runs, it should do so indefinitely, because it constantly replenishes it's
own fuel supply. Imagine if this could drive a little car or boat indefenitely, without the need to ever refuel. This technology will eventually be perfected
to be applied in high performance vehicles and machines, but my design is intended to keep a little car or boat going forever without refueling.

This is the established line of thinking on the subject... but it is not true. I see it as a way to dismiss any exploration of these technologies. Having seen electrolysis cells that were astoundingly efficient, and how amazingly combusible hydroxy gas is (the hydrogen and oxygen gas released by electrolysis) this idea of inefficiency strikes me as mis-information. Efficiency of electrolysis of water can be drastically improved through use of resonant frequencies and more complicated fractal designed shapes for the plates... distances between plates etc. etc.

To follow this up with a plug for nulear power, makes my "coroprate shill" alarm begin to think about ringing. Not saying that you are 1992.

But, how, in the aftermath of Japan, can ANYONE seriously think that more nuclear power is the answer. We have radiation from that debacle showing up in the food supply of the US & the EU. This alone makes nuclear power untenable from a political standpoint. How can any one country or group of people have the right to make decisions that lead directly to disease and death for other people who had no say in the decision, and do not profit from its implementation?

Do you really think that people have the right to make power for themselves (and profits for themselves) while engaging in activities that put populations at risk thousands of miles away... populations that accrue absolutely no benefit from said activities?

People who will develop cancer in countries well removed from Japan never got to use even a single kW of that power, nor did anyone ask them if they thought this was a good idea.

I'm assuming the "hydrogen engine" in 1 uses a combustion reaction to release energy, so the exhaust oxygen should go there to decrease fuel and waste. Otherwise, oxygen necessary for the combustion in the engine would be considered a necessary fuel that is not included in your diagram.

More importantly, assuming all of the mechanisms in that engine are 100 percent efficient, you have just created a perpetual motion machine. Unfortunately no real device is 100 percent efficient. Even if they were, it could only do a finite amount of external work before needing a new source of energy.

People debate the validity of the second law of thermodynamics and the law of conservation of energy here and there, but if you believe them, and there are very convincing rational reasons to believe them, closed system perpetual motion and free energy machines are simply not possible.

Devices like the one you've diagrammed are interesting tests physically to see how efficient you can make a generator, hydrogen engine, etc by seeing how long they can run before they stop due to losing too much energy as heat.

its still good to have fun and I applaud your creative engineering thinking, but for anything to be useful there are these basic things to understand.

I would like to build a prototype.
I thought I could use a small field Generator like these should be good to work with:


Perhaps, if it runs on gas-fuel, the intended fuel could be replaced by Hydrogen-Oxygen gas.
Could it then run on that gas mixture or would the engine need to be modified to run on this gas mixture?

If this is done, the drive axis could be replaced with a longer one, that runs through the Dynamo, providing both Electricity & Drive.
I think this should be enough to power a small, light boat/canoe.

There are kits to change gas powered engines to hydrogen... that is a pretty serious project itself though. G00gle is pretty helpful on that topic.

I don't mean to rain on your parade, but diverting some of the power from the hydrogen engine to make electricity to make more hydrogen from water is only decreasing the efficiency of the engine. Energy must be put into the system somewhere and simply changing its form in that cycle unnecessarily will waste energy. Typically hydrogen engine schemes use solar energy to convert water to hydrogen at a refueling station. In that case, the energy to run the engine comes fairly directly from the sun.

The energy required to push a canoe through water is negligible compared to that produced by the generator/engine. Furthermore, you could continue to add energy to the system... in the form of H20. Water is abundant... especially wherever a canoe might find itself. And, it is full of chemical energy with 2 of the most combustible elements known as its basis. The key to the efficiency in his design is the quality of his electrolysis.

@ The OP

I'm curious to see what you come up with. You can always continue to tweak it to make it even more effective, but you should at least be able to get it to run. A perpetual motion machine? Unlikely. But a fun little project, most certainly.

You don't need the Oxygen exhaust (#8 ) because the hydroxy gas will burn even better than pure hydrogen. People will have their knee-jerk response about the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics, but they mostly have never even used an electrolytic tank or witnessed the huge amounts of hydroxy gas that a tiny amount of electricity can generate from water.

It might be even more efficient in a boat situation to simply replenish the water supply periodically rather than waste a lot of time with cooling and condensing the vapor exhaust. Do both... play around.

Whatever you do, don't let people discourage you.

Exactly. That's why the plans presented in the OP are basically not of a hydrogen engine but of an electrical engine. As the engine works, the battery will be depleted since you cannot generate enough energy to feed the the motor AND re-charge the battery back to the amount of energy that it lost for the hydrolysis step. This is violation of the second law of thermodynamics. Sooner or later you'll need to replace the battery to keep this system going.

To the OP; your design is flawed (for the above mentioned reasons) and a waste of time to try to build it.

Speaking of engines...wouldn't solid methane be a good fuel? I suppose it automatically converts to gas while heated, so you'll have twice as much bang for your bucks.

No matter how high quality the electrolysis is, it takes exactly the same amount of energy in the form of electricity to convert water into hydrogen gas and oxygen gas as you can get back by combusting it. But, no matter how well you make it, friction will steal some of the energy away and the cycle will run at a loss. Water is not simply hydrogen gas and oxygen gas mushed together...

Like I said before to the OP, I applaud thinking creatively, but I think its just as bad to encourage folly as to discourage righteousness. If you want to engineer something useful, you should understand these concepts.

That is simply not true. I applaud your thinking that you are saving someone from folly, but there are tons of verified examples of a small amount of electricity releasing a proportionately larger amount of power in the form of combustible hydroxy gas. Google it.

The fact is that H20 IS composed solely of hydrogen and oxygen and the amount of electricity needed to seperate the two gases is nowhere near the amount of energy that is contained in those gases. This does not violate any Thermodynamic law. I have personally seen a 9v battery release enough hydroxy gas to power a small motor. Your textbooks are misleading you.

It takes more energy to dig up petroleum, refine it, ship it around the world, and get it into your ICE than it does to liberate an equal amount of combustible power from water. Human work counts as energy.

Your intentions might be genuinely helpful, but perhaps you simply have not seen a platinum pole electrolytic cell tuned to a resonant frequency before. There are big rig truckers who use relatively inefficient electrolysis to create hydroxy gas to mix with their diesel fuel and get 2 to 3 times better gas mileage. Electricity is generated by the alternator simply by driving, so there is no cost for the electricity in those setups whatsoever.

Maybe the curiculum of whatever engineering courses you may have taken was written by people who have a vested interest in people not figuring this out?

Look, I'm not here to argue with you about facts, Fool. If you want a lesson in thermodynamics this page actually goes over the energy calculations for electrolysis of water, hydrogen fuel cells, and hydrogen combustion: http://www.chem1.com/acad/webtext/thermeq/TE4.html .

Why don't you revolutionize the world's energy supply already if you know how to make free energy from water? Remember, for better or worse, no conspiracy theories allowed.

To the OP: I apologize for what's happened to your thread. Good luck with your projects.

Umm... Have you thought about what powers the alternator?

I guess you could hook my conceptual engine up to a solar panel as done in this setup:


In addition to the Driveshaft-powered Dynamo & the solar panel, windenergy can also be fed
into the battery to power the electrolytic cell & the cooling elements of the condenser.

Simply put: Energy required to turn water into hydrogen/oxygen and still run a vehicle based on hydrogen combustion is greater than the energy provided by the hydrogen being combusted from said process.

I don't understand how such a basic concept could be misunderstood....

H2O = X energy to break apart
H2 + O = X energy produced when combusted

Assuming absolutely no loss of energy due to all environmental factors, that still leaves you with a net gain of ZERO ENERGY to convert into mechanical motion...

My brain hurts at how someone could not understand this. 2 + 2 = 4. 4 - 2 - 2 = 0.... it's that simple to me!?!

SKA, what benefits does that setup give over some traditional "battery/capicitor"? My knowledge of energy storage is incredibly lacking, but I was under the impression that hydrogen is incredibly difficult (expensive) to store safely due to it's high combustibility.

I suppose if properly stored, hydrogen storage would be more reliable than relying on some battery that uses acids or eventually dies down.

But this would not be something you'd want in a moving vehicle where crashes might occur... :/

Truly sorry if your brain hurts. But this is not a closed system we are talking about. No one is talking about perpetual motion.

You can add more water (energy) to the system. You can add other sources of electricity as well. Solar, wind, recapturing power from motion, even the weight of the vehicle itself.

If you think that the amount of energy needed to electrolyze water is exactly equal to the energy released in combusting hydroxy gas, I politely suggest you try it first. Quoting basic newtonian physics from centuries past is not a proof of anything.

There is no physical law that says that the amount of energy needed to seperate water has to equal the chemical energy of the component gases. None. Furthermore, the amount of energy needed to perform electrolysis has been proven to be reduceable from what was assumed to be needed in decades past utilizing resonant frequencies, different materials for the cathode and anode, the amount of electrolyte salts dissolved in the water and so on.

To reiterate, the electrical energy used in electrolysis is not the source of the chemical energy in Hydrogen or Oxygen. Although it used to be taught that the amount of electricty needed to change water into another form would equal the combustive energy of the gases released, this has been disproven. For over 20 years, there are dozens of proven examples where tiny amounts of electricity are able to release a large volume of hydroxy gas. I have seen it with my own eyes. Perhaps the economic forces which run our societies are a reason why such information hasn't been disseminated en masse to all young physics & engineering students... I have no idea.

Regardless, reducing a complex argument to simplistic, physics 101 science doesn't make you the voice of reason.


No offense.