[HayTay]

Has anyone else seen or used one of Estes Hydrogen Fuel Rockets? I was cruising through Hobby Lobby/Crafts, Etc. a few months ago and it caught my attention. Not enough to shell out $49.99 for one, but I did check out all 6 sides of the packaging and wondered how it generated the Hydrogen-Oxygen mix from water.

After seeing this thread I decided to do a liitle further research on Estes Rockets web site. I tracked down the instruction manual and discovered that the gases are produced by the electrolysis (uses 6 D cells) of a mixture of water and citric acid crystals (see attached excerpt from the instructions). I haven't seen it in action but obviously it produces the desired result of launching a rocket some 200 feet into the air. Even comes with a 90 day warranty.

Is this possible on a larger scale like the "torch" and "vehicular fuel source"?

Waddya think?,

HayTay

[pminmo]

"the electricity has to be generated in some manner and the amount of electricity needed means that so called green alternatives, solar, wind, tidal are inadequate"

I used to think that electricity production was also a downfall to be considered as a energy source, and I have now changed my mind. With temperature differential engines and superheating systems we should be able to produce emense amounts of electricity at pretty low costs. Skip PV systems. For non mobile applications there are mechanical and chemical methods of storing energy, no huge need for batterys.

I ponder if somewhere in the future we won't be driving compressed air cars. Will nanotube technology or ??? will create some incredably stong materials that will allow air to be compressed to pressures we can't fathom?

[miljnor]

a flywheel is a very efficient storage medium. There was a great artical in popular mechanics a few years back on a german engineer that was making great strides in mechanical storage of energy. He actually made a proof of concept motorcycle (BMW of course) that used his flywheel system.

probably a better way to go!

[Geof]

a flywheel is a very efficient storage medium. There was a great artical in popular mechanics a few years back on a german engineer that was making great strides in mechanical storage of energy. He actually made a proof of concept motorcycle (BMW of course) that used his flywheel system.

probably a better way to go!

Yes, and this is an area where nanotube technology might have application making extremely high strength materials to use in flywheels running at hundreds of thousands of rpm in vacuum chambers. There are companies working on using this for large scale backup electrical systems and a few years ago some work was done using wind generators to spin up a flywheel. But this only allow the storage of energy, it is not a source of energy.

But I wonder about the motorcycle. Did you ever play with gyroscope toys as a kid. Start them spinning and balance them on anything because they would not fall over while spinning. A flywheel is a gyroscope; I have a picture in my mind of a motorcycle that can go like a bandit ... staying perfectly upright and only in a straight line.

[miljnor]

I think if I recall the article correctly the flywheel was very small and spun really fast, not fast enough for the engineer. But like you said a new material has to be made to be able to spin at 100k rpm +.

I know he mentioned something about gyroscopic effects and I don't know what he did about them. Something I could envision is a floating carriage that allowed the gyro to stay upright as the bike turned, maybe eliminating the effect altogether.

[Geof]

....Something I could envision is a floating carriage that allowed the gyro to stay upright as the bike turned, maybe eliminating the effect altogether.

Now there is an engineering challenge. These things must be electrically driven; I can imagine no way you could do a mechanical connection. The flywheel has to be the rotor of, or connected to the rotor of a variable frequency electric motor.

[miljnor]

you got it in one!

I remember the flywheel is just hook to a motor and the motor spins it up to speed while plugged into a wall socket. After the motorcycle is "charged" up the motor act like a generator and with regenerative breaking spins the flywheel back up to speed. I don't remember if there was a battery as well but it would make sense, due to any looses in the mechanical system.

It would be a *****en set up. wish I had one or had the money to make one. I rember the artical sayig that he went through ALOT of flywheels while testing (most of them blowing apart at the rpm he was looking for)

[lwill]

Did any one notice the same thing I did in the video? I might be wrong, but, when the "cool" flame sudenly makes the metal "hotter than the sun" did you notice his fingers on the oxygen nob on the torch?? Any one who has cut with an Oxy-acetlyn torch knows how hot it gets when you pour on the O2. Once the metal is hot enough, it will burn on its own with enough O2. I am not saying it isn't cool or that it doesn't work, but it is amazing what smoke and mirrors (and flames (flame2) )can do to the media. Also, he got rid of the "dangerous" acetylen but you still need the high preasure O2 tanks that have a habit of flying though walls! Just my observations.

[DennisCNC]

Next week Monday or Tuesday I'm gana make it over to the place and see this thing for my self and ask the guy if I can take pics of inside his blue box!

I hope they let me.

[bkinman]

I would like to point out that water cannot ever be considered as fuel because it has no chemical potential energy associated with it.

[diarmaid]

Dennis dont forget to update us on your findings please, and those pics would be gr8 to see if u get them. Thanks.

[sdantonio]

definition:

Chemical energy

Chemical energy is a form of potential energy related to the breaking and forming of chemical bonds.

Water has bonds (i.e. the two O-H bonds), if they are broken then the water releases (or absorbes) that potential energy depending on the energy of it's ambient environment. Water also undergoes hydrogen bonding (a special type of Van Der Walls bonding) which also stores potential energy that can be released (and is released when water undergoes a phase change from a state of higher order to one of lower order (solid to liquid, liquid to gas) etc.

Now if you had said the bonds in water store less chemical potential energy than the bonds in glyceryl trinitrate (nitroglycerine) or gasoline then I would say you were correct.

Steven

[unterhaus]

this whole debate seems to be raging everywhere on the internet. The real question is can you get a net energy release from processing water? I don't think you can. The reason I say this is that the products of combustion of hydrogen and oxygen is water. If it was something else, then there is some potential for energy release. If an inventer says he can take water and convert it to fuel with a extra input of energy and make something useful, then that's obviously true.

The estes rockets are a good example. There is energy from a battery going in, and hydrogen fuel coming out, which is burned and provides propulsion. But the energy released is actually less than the energy taken from the battery. You can't power a rocket with a battery, so this indirect method is used. You could do the same thing with a car, but it would be cheaper to just use the battery to drive an electric motor and skip all the chemistry.

We've all heard of the 60mpg carburator and how it was suppressed, the inventor was supposedly dissapeared, etc. I realized recently that the inventor was probably disappeared by one of the investors he ripped off. As we run out of petroleum, expect more and more frauds to show up. It's going to make the job of legitimate inventors much more difficult.

[mdreitzusa]

if your looking for the electrolytic solution it is comprised of KOH and water in a volumetric ratio of KOH:H2O=2:20+0.05.
sound a lot like charging a car battery and collecting the gas that is released.
if you are looking for alternate fuels you could try,
http://jlnlabs.online.fr/bingofuel/bgen/
its the about the same thing,or there is
http://jlnlabs.online.fr/bingofuel/html/bfr10.htm

[lastmn]

How about the basic thought that water is not an infinite fuel source even if it is recycled. This is just a distraction from maybe we just "eat to much".

[mdreitzusa]

but our fast food habit could run our cars.
http://journeytoforever.org/biodiesel_make.html
http://www.greasecar.com/
heres a way to get rid of the frier grease.

[rhino]

If you believe in this as being a source of energy I can refer you to a bridge in Brooklyn that might be for sale and a large acreage of desert property in Florida.

i'll throw in a dollar for each to get the bidding going!

[Yiros]

It will most likely happen, my grandfather made carbys for ford V8 engines in a small machine shop in Australia, they increased fuel economy by around 25% , he had several offers from fuel companys but the design died with him several years ago. Along with carby engines.!!!

[unterhaus]

you can lean out most cars, and they'll get better gas milage. I had a vacuum leak on a honda, and it used to get astounding gas milage. It also was a pain at idle. As far as I can tell, the reason the car companies don't do this is pollution control and engine longevity. There is a company that sells hydrogen injection systems to solve the pollution control problem, but I'm not sure about the longevity.

[Switcher]

Isn't that "Carlton Sheets" in that video from Post #1 ?

http://youtube.com/watch?v=HF__Qlhtn...=water%20power

Did he give up, on real estate?







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