First water car is already a reality: 1000km of autonomy and the end of gasoline | Hacker News Reader

First water car is already a reality: 1000km of autonomy and the end of gasoline

eldiario24.com

10 pointsrmason34 comments

I don't buy it, unless there is something that I missed. But for this concept to work you need some initial energy to break down the water molecules, then the output of your power cell should be large enough to power your car and break down more of these water molecules. I know there is a catalyst in this contraption that should lower the energy requirement to break down water, but I fail to see how this system is sustainable. The energy equation seems unbalanced to me.

Looks like a free energy scam, no?

I concur. Seems too good to be true.

My guess is that “membrane” used to facilitate hydrogen extraction is going to a bitch to maintain. Probably any kind of impurity with render the system FUBAR.

Probably overhyped, but Hydrogen Oxygen gas liberation from H20 followed by recombination and electricity production in an H2 fuel cell (exhausting water again) is very well known and used frequently. The difference is that normally the Hydrogen is produced off-vehicle. That's because normally carrying around the mass of the feed water and reaction chamber is inefficient (i.e. you avoid lugging around that mass and avoid the cost of a reaction chamber if you produce the H2 off-vehicle).

However, there are absolutely ways to fill a vehicle's water tank with water, use some catalyst to liberate H2, and then combining with pure O2 or O2 scavenged from ambient air in a fuel cell to generate electricity.

In underwater vehicles, because they're surrounded by water, you avoid the need to carry a water tank around and instead, you can just carry an Aluminum (typically an Aluminum compound designed to prevent formation of a reaction inhibiting oxydized aluminum layer). The Al reacts with water to produce H2 on the vehicle which is then used with a fuel cell to produce elctrucity.

This is not "free energy" - the energy potential is resident within the catalyst, and the catalyst itself must be 're-energized' or replaced. In the case of oxidized Aluminum, you must inject large amounts of energy to regenerate the pure aluminum catalyst.

> the catalyst itself must be 're-energized' or replaced

That does not exactly fit the definition of a catalyst, to put it politely.

Honest question: are you trolling, or do you simply need a refresher on the basic principles of thermodynamics?

That is overly hostile and ironically wrong.

Some catalysts do get "degraded" over time and need to be regenerated. Look up palladium sintering or zeolite coking. The catalyst itself is not "damaged" but by catalyzing a reaction, its physical shape is altered (get clogged or fused together) which reduce its effectiveness. These can be regenerated by burning off the clogging or heating them up.

And if you get into the enzymes, which are biological catalysts, they are even more likely to degrade and need to be replaced.

Don't try to be smart by insulting others when you yourself are not an expert.

The thing is, we're looking at an article that claims cars can drive without any apparent external source of energy. We need to question where the required energy comes from. So when someone says that oh, there's a catalyst, and it needs to be re-energized or replaced after a while, then it very much looks like that supposed catalyst is actually the source of energy.

Maybe that's now what was meant, maybe they were indeed talking about the catalyst being degraded. But then it's a bit weird to talk about "re-energizing", and more importantly, that still doesn't the main question: what is the energy source?

Am I too hostile towards claims that energy can be made out of nothing? Maybe. I know I don't feel guilty when exposing fraudulent claims.

The term used was "re-energized" because "the energy potential is resident within the catalyst."

That is NOT a catalyst, as roelschroeven correctly commented.

Otherwise a rechargeable battery would be a "catalyst" because it too needs to be re-energized or replaced.

What a catalyst does is lower the activation barrier between two states, without providing net energy. Getting H2 from H2O, i.e. electrolysis, requires adding energy. We know this because fuel cells work in the other direction to produce power, and entropy always increases.

I was not referring to electrolysis, I was referring to the chemical reaction between water and certain Aluminum compounds to liberate H2 (which creates Aluminum oxide and other byproducts, and if you want to recover the Aluminum catalyst, you must add energy to remove the Oxygen from the Aluminum oxide (i.e. "re-energizing" the catalyst so that it can be used again in a reaction with water). Pretty straight forward.

What you describe is not catalysis.

If oxygen is bound to the aluminum oxide, and requires energy to remove, it is not a catalyst.

Why are you capitalizing Aluminum and Oxygen?

Honest question: have you never heard of catalyst decay or deactivation? These are known issues in production systems.

Trolling [1] - "when someone posts or comments online to 'bait' people, which means deliberately provoking an argument or emotional reaction." [1]

catalyst [2] - "a substance that enables a chemical reaction to proceed at a usually faster rate or under different conditions (as at a lower temperature) than otherwise possible"

1. https://www.esafety.gov.au/young-people/trolling#:~:text=Tro....

2. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/catalyst

I guess I'm missing something. The poster asked a question, I provided an honest response based on my professional experience. I believe this is in the positive collaborarive spirit of HN. I'm just trying to contribute information that may not be readily available elsewhere.

Cheers.

> catalyst [2] - "a substance that enables a chemical reaction to proceed at a usually faster rate or under different conditions (as at a lower temperature) than otherwise possible"

To split water into hydrogen and oxygen, you need to add energy. It's very well possible that a catalyst can make the process more efficient than simple electrolysis, it can't change the fundamental fact that energy needs to be added for the reaction to occur. A catalyst will decrease the required activation energy, but not the total energy balance.

When you say that the catalyst itself must be 're-energized' or replaced, it sounds like the catalyst is the source of energy. Maybe that's not correct, but then the question remains: where does the energy come from?

If a "catalyst" needs to be "re-energized" then its the fuel, not a catalyst.

"Break the first law of thermodynamics with this one simple trick!"

I'm not sure why I'm bothering, but here is the definition of a "catalyst" [1], which states that a catalyst promotes a reaction that would otherwise require higher temperature. Here is a description of how hydrogen can be liberated by increasing thermal energy of a sample [2].

What exactly is the issue, and where are your citations supporting your argument?

1. "Thermodynamics of High Temperature Gases" by Joseph Hilsenrath and Bertrand Hirschfelder, which discusses the breakdown of water at extreme temperatures.

2. "Thermodynamics of High Temperature Gases" by Joseph Hilsenrath and Bertrand Hirschfelder, which discusses the breakdown of water at extreme temperatures.

I cannot verify that citation exists. I looked in archive.org and Google Scholar. No such title found.

Joseph Hilsenrath was an employee at the National Bureau of Standards in the 1960s. It seems he was involved in making tables concerning gases, but not in catalysis.

There appears to be no publications by Bertrand Hirschfelder.

How did you come across this apparently obscure publication, and why are your [1] and [2] the same?

It seems gauche to suggest it, but my experience with LLMs is they often give bad citations like this. If you are using a second-hand source for your information, you may want to verify they are not giving you LLM swill.

I ask because your summary of what a catalyst means is pretty poor, and I wanted to see what your source material says.

For example, as https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catalysis points out, a catalyst does not alter the equilibrium constant. It adds that if a catalyst were to change the equilibrium constant, the result "would be a perpetual motion machine, a contradiction to the laws of thermodynamics."

Then if we go to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrolysis_of_water we see "The decomposition of pure water into hydrogen and oxygen at standard temperature and pressure is not favorable in thermodynamic terms".

Higher temperatures work "because the electrolysis reaction is more efficient at higher temperatures. In fact, at 2500 °C, electrical input is unnecessary because water breaks down to hydrogen and oxygen through thermolysis. Such temperatures are impractical; proposed HTE systems operate between 100 °C and 850 °C.", says https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-temperature_electrolysis .

Thus, raising the temperature in order to shift the hydrolysis equilibrium constant, as you described it, cannot be characterized as catalysis.

I notice that you haven’t refuted my claim.

Splitting water requires energy, you can't bypass that cost. So yes

I've looked a bit more in depth, and it turns out what Electriq Global does is much more interesting and much more plausible than what's described in the article. It's a very poor quality article.

What they do (or at the very least, claim to do) is create a fuel via H2 + KBO2 -> KBH4, apparently in the form of a powder that's much easier to handle and transport than hydrogen itself (no leaks, no heavy pressure vessels needed). In the vehicle (or where ever you need electric energy) they use the reverse reaction: powder in, H2 and KBO2 out. The H2 can then be used in a fuel cell to generate electricity. I don't know if they envision some recycling system to get the KBO2 back to the factory.

If that turns out to work, efficiently, it could be a promising technology.

The company mentioned (Electriq Global) has a powder that stores hydrogen. There must have been some language or knowledge transfer issue with the article, because the website for Electriq talks about using KBH4 as a hydrogen carrier. https://www.electriq.com

Can you use any kind of water? Or filtered and treated special water? The article says that we can use the "most abundant substance on earth", which would be the case if we can use sea water straight from the ocean. If it is the case, that'd be amazing.

This sounds too good to be true so what's the catch? I'm all for advances towards being independent of oil, but I don't see the draw back here. What's holding this back from mass production and adoption?

Why does it feel like all concept cars are designed by the same 4th grader drawing "the future"?

Concept cars fit into two buckets: proofs of concept like this one that are showing off the tech itself, and the externals are a means to an end. You don’t waste a bunch of money hiring your Giorgetto Giugiaros of the world when you’re pitching your internals. The other is a bucket of vehicles that might exaggerated externals to demonstrate the design language of a vehicle or series of vehicles. You might be more willing to hire fancy designers to do these cars, and tone down the externals for market appeal and ease of manufacture.

So your saying its ugly because it was really expensive to design lol. Actually this somehow makes perfect sense to me.

I don't understand the "we split water to make hydrogen that turns back to water" approach when it then "emits water vapor". Why not put the emissions water back and split it again?

> we split water to make hydrogen that turns back to water

At most you can gain exactly zero energy out of it, splitting water requires energy, combining releases same amount of energy, so it makes zero sense anyway

It is hydrogen fuel-cell car. Water is the byproduct.

> This membrane acts like an electrolytic cell, using electricity to break down the water molecules into their composite elements. The hydrogen produced from the reaction is then fed into the vehicle’s fuel cell.

You are exactly right. It’s a fuel cell car.

Sounds like a rube goldberg machine doing electric car with a water split and then hydrogen burn in the middle.

The Toyota Mirai has been in production since 2015 and is already sold in the US, Canada, Japan and Europe.

This article is all over the place. "The first water car is already a reality", but at the same time "Theorised but unproven".

What the article claims is that the company it talks about can convert water to hydrogen and back to water, and can extract energy from that. That breaks the laws of thermodynamics, yet no claim is made that they have been able to formulate updated laws of thermodynamics consistent with both new and existing observations.

In other words, bullshit.

That "The Diary 24" website seems full of perpetuum mobile and free energy nonsense. How did this get on Hacker News?

Water+KBH4 is converted to hydrogen+KB02. KBH4 is produced off vehicle, at an energy cost that is not mentioned in the article, but no laws of thermodynamics are broken. Bullshitter is you, and I know why.

The article never mentions KBH4 or KBO2. In fact the article doesn't mention anything that's produced off vehicle. There's only mention of water, hydrogen and oxygen; a unique nano-technology membrane that splits water into hydrogen and oxygen; and a fuel cell that combines hydrogen and oxygen back into water.

Of course it's very well possible that the article is leaving out essential facts. Since the article is what we're talking about here, the article is what I'm basing my opinion on.

> Bullshitter is you, and I know why.

I don't know what you mean. I don't have an agenda here, other than exposing pseudoscience.

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