A Car That Runs on Water! They Said It Was Impossible! (because it is)

today I'm going to make a car that runs

on

water and also investigating whether

cars that run on water could actually be

worse for the environment than a

traditional gas engine of all the

molecules on the planet water is the

molecule that almost everyone knows do

you know what water's made

of

H2O yep water is made of two atoms of

hydrogen in one atom of oxygen so that

means when you burn hydrogen gas in air

it'll make a pretty good explosion as it

reacts with the oxygen in the air to

make water okay here we

go so we did see a puff of fire but

that's a pretty lame explosion if you

ask me the reaction didn't happen very

fast because the hydrogen had to mix

with the oxygen in the air before it

could react but if instead of filling a

bubble with pure hydrogen I fill it

instead with hydrogen gas mixed with

oxygen gas in a 2:1 ratio you get

something that can be quite dangerous

okay here we

go this mixture of gases is called a

stochiometric oxyhydrogen

gas holy cow it's hard to tell how loud

this actually is because it Clips the

sound on the audio track so let me put

my deciel meter here so we can see how

loud it actually

is 112.8 DB from a little bubble like

this that's as loud as standing about

100 ft away from a jet engine the speed

of detonation is about 3,000 m/ second

about 8 times faster than the speed of

sound and about six times faster than

the detonation of gunpowder there's a

lot of power packed into this gas and

when it releases that power it's intense

but what if we didn't have to release

the power all at once What If instead of

all the hydrogen reacting with all the

oxygen at one time they could take turns

and make a nice controlled reaction for

example I have two tanks of gas under

this water here one is hydrogen and the

other is oxygen the gases are going to

combine in a controlled reaction in this

contraption called a fuel cell to make

water and when they combine we get some

energy out of it only we don't get

uncontrolled pressure spikes and a lot

of heat but we get electricity okay so

I'm just going to touch these two

electrodes to the motor wires in the

back

here so this is literally only being

powered by these gases here in fact if

you watch it long enough you'll see that

the volume of those gases are decreasing

as this motor spins I can use this

electricity to power a fan or even power

a car motor for example I can make a

little benchtop model of a car that's

powered by these gases I put the tanks

of gas on the back and when I connect

the electrodes the car starts moving so

it's an electric car that's powered by

gas only these wheels don't turn very

well this is called called a hydrogen

fuel cell car and you can make fulls

scale cars that work just like this in

hydrogen fuel celled cars they store

hydrogen in a high press tank that's

then fed to the fuel cells in the car

that generate electricity when the

hydrogen reacts with the oxygen in the

air but how do you get electricity from

two gases reacting together well

electrons are attracted to oxygen more

than they're attracted to hydrogen due

to the fact that oxygen has eight

positive protons that aren't shielded

that much from it surrounding electrons

so if possible it'll pull the electrons

off of a hydrogen atom and the hydrogen

and oxygen will end up sharing with the

majority of the electron being near the

oxygen and that's exactly what's

Happening Here the oxygen on this side

of the fuel cell is touching the

Platinum metal that's connected through

the wires to the metal on the other side

that's touching the hydrogen gas so the

oxygen can literally pull the electrons

off of the hydrogen on the other side

and so we just make use of the movement

of electrons through the wires instead

of just letting them go right to the

oxygen we make them pass through this

wire and do some work along the way so

we did the exact same reaction that

happened with the explosion but just in

a much more controlled way so a hydrogen

fuel cell can make water from oxygen and

hydrogen but it can also make hydrogen

and oxygen from water if you put in

power so if I just run power to these

two electrodes I can immediately start

generating hydrogen and oxygen and that

hydrogen and oxygen can then be used to

turn a motor later when I need need it

so I now have a car that runs on water

alone and before we continue when life

gets more difficult than chemistry it's

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help for sponsoring this video now let's

get back to our experiment now at this

point your thermodynamic energy balance

senses should be tingling right now is

the car actually running on water well

if you turn to fill good news stories

then yes you can get cars to run on

water oh this is nice some kid in India

created a motorbike that runs on water

alone it says it looks like they're

using the same thing we did here he uses

the battery from his bike to split the

water into hydrogen and oxygen and then

burns the oxyhydrogen fuel how have we

missed this technology all these years

oh look another YouTube video that has

1.4 million views they use the battery

to split water into this flammable

mixture of hydrogen and oxygen and then

they use that to power the motor then

turns the alternator to charge the

battery that keeps splitting the water

into hydrogen and oxygen what a great

idea only there's one problem here it

doesn't work let's see how much energy

it takes to split this water into

hydrogen and oxygen it took me 8 seconds

to make 10 mL at 5 amps and 3.5 Vol so

that's 140 jewles it took me 100 seconds

to use 10 millit at .5 volts in 0.5 amps

so that means I only got 25 jewles of

energy back out of it so in this case

right here I only got a fifth of the

energy out that I put into it so it took

me more energy to split the water than

we got back out of it when we combine

the hydrogen and oxygen back together so

this video is a big fat lie and

surprisingly no one seems to know it in

the comments section you can't use water

as a fuel because the water is the

product of the reactants it doesn't have

any chemical energy to give any video or

news story that talks about using water

to power a vehicle always uses some

energy source to make fuel from water

and then uses that fuel to power the

vehicle you can use metals that react to

form hydrogen from water or you can you

just use electrolysis from a battery

that was charged using some other fuel

but no matter what it costs more energy

to split water apart than you'll ever

get back out of it when you burn it back

together again but what about if we just

use the energy from the Sun to split the

water well in that case it would work

but you still aren't using the water as

the fuel the sun is the fuel this is why

a few years years back hydrogen fuel

cell cars seem like they'd be a great

Alternative Energy car for the future

all you need is a tank of hydrogen and

you can power your car this hydrogen can

be produced from alternative energy

sources like the sun water or wind but

the problem is that most of the hydrogen

in the world isn't produced through

electrolysis from these alternative

energy sources most of the hydrogen in

the world is made by reacting natural

gas with steam by heating it up so you

burn hydrocarbons to heat up the process

and then you use hydrocarbons to make

the hydrogen gas so by making this clean

hydrogen gas that can be used to power

an engine that makes nothing but water

is the exhaust you created a whole bunch

of CO2 in the process in fact hydrogen

production makes about 830 million tons

of CO2 annually that's more CO2 than you

would have released if you just burned

the natural gas that was used to make

the hydrogen gas in the first place so

cars that run on hydrogen seem like a

really good idea in theory but in

reality they're doing more harm than

good unless they're truly using

renewable energy but I don't want to

Discount hydrogen fuel cells too much

they're still a really cool technology

and since electricity can be used to

make the hydrogen these hydrogen fuel

cells still could be of potential use if

or when we start using nuclear power as

our main source of energy and thanks

again for watching the action lab and

we'll see you next time