There is one fairly old aspect of internal combustion engines. It is the
water injection into the chamber. In principle it combines combustion
engine with steam engine. The liquid water sprayed into the cylinder
evaporates taking the heat from the combusted gasses. That causes lower
temperatures of combustion, therefore lower emissions of nitrous oxide.
The created steam adds pressure.
The water can also be added into gasoline as long as you figure out how
to keep that water dispersed in it. I did run into it somewhere quite
recently but I just skimmed through it. These people claim, and I have
no reason to challenge it, that an engine would run on mixtures with up
to 40% water.
Jerry will know where to find it, I think.
The easiest way to mix water into gasoline is to use etyl-alcohol as a
carrier of water. But I guess you know what problem this runs into. You
stand against oil resellers as well as giving our governments quite a
headache how to control the alcohol.
We would need to solve a few problems with use of such fuels. There is
corrosion to be reckoned with, there is engine and fuel temperature
balance to be reckoned with, especially in colder climates. There is
also mineral deposit build up to be addressed. The last one might be a
question of distillation, which itself may pose over all energy
drawback, same as obtaining hydrogen by electrolysis. Thinking about
this, the exhaust water could be possibly recondensed and reused.
Ambient is free.
The crunch is that the water has to go in as liquid, not as vapor,
because the greatest expansion of water occurs when it changes its
state,
The beauty of it is that it can be easily done with current technology,
a part of the fuel is completely naturally renewable, and that it cuts
the pollution rather drastically.
Even better result may be achieved with propane powered engines which
run fairly hotter than gasoline. Water injection would do something
close to a miracle there.
If hydrogen powered engine produces temperatures as great as to worry
about the integrity of the engine, the water injection should do real
miracles and the mixture could be quite rich.
This approach would not solve our energy problems, but it would
definitely give us an extension on the lease.
Who ever wants to do anything on this should check with Edmund
Scientific. The have been selling water injection kit for carburetor
cars for decades. They claim increased efficiency of up to 10%. I am
under an impression that the relatively low increase as compared to
water in fuel is due to evaporation of the water already in the
carburetor.
Regards Slavek.