Hydrogen-based Rotary Engine?

Seabird99 writes: "I came across this article at one of my car related forums and thought that I'd pass it on here. I have always been intrigued by "alternative" technologies where they relate to artificial locomotion." For some reason Slashdot gets a lot of submissions of wacko energy concepts - power from nothing, power from sand, power from a black box, engines that get 500 miles to the gallon... Perhaps this is more of the same, but at least it's an interesting write-up.

Comments

Next Problem

[JJ]

And now . . . someone has to come up with a way to generate hydrogen en masse and deliver it to your nearest filling station. Not to mention store it and dispense it there.

Re:Next Problem

[kramer]

Yeah, that's the problem with hydrogen: You can't just dig a hydrogen well, you've got to make it.

You can't just dig a gasoline well either, what's your point? Even natural gas requires refining to remove impurities and other trace gases. With very few exceptions, you're going to have to do some work to get the energy in a form that's usable to you.

Re:Next Problem

[ivan256]

The surface area of the roof of your garage doesn't collect enough sunshine (Even if you never had a cloudy day) enough to power your car if you drive more then a few miles a day.

Re:Next Problem

[plover]

Yes, a "gasoline well" doesn't exist. But the raw crude from an oil well comes complete with enough internal potential energy to crack a usable amount of it into gasoline. The refiner simply burns part of his raw product to produce the heat required to crack the rest of it.

A bottle of water doesn't have enough energy present to split it into hydrogen. You can say "yes, if it's at 30,000 feet or 99 degrees C" or whatever, but that bottle of water required EXTERNAL energy to raise it to that potential. And that external energy is the entire point. It had to come from somewhere, it's not free.

Until someone invents a way to "crack" water (with some off-the-wall fusion theory or whatever) there will always be a need for an external energy source to split it. Whether it comes from solar panels on your garage roof or a coal-fired plant in Montana over electric lines doesn't change the fact that EXTERNAL energy was required to make it useful.

John

Re:Next Problem

[budgenator]

He chose hydrogen because of its low-enviromental impact quality. The engine is inherently multi-fuel, air-LNG should work also, That is if this thing works period. Hydrogen also has other problems its high pressure requirements is complicated by Hydrogen embrittlement.

Hydrogen, is also a metal, and a very active metal. It tend to form an alloy with the metal containing it which is more brittle than it previously was. Its small mollecular size also allows it to penetrate deep into the containers metal. This leads to sudden, catastrophic system failures, in lay terms it tends to blow up. I believe that NASA plates (or at least did) plate the insides of the fuel cells with gold to keep the hydrogen out of the container and from causing Hydrogen embrittlement.
As far as using nitros-ammonia system, not with my family you don't, actualy the same goes for H2-O2 to. LPNG is about as dangerous a gas as I care to have in my car. LPNG rarly blows up has some limited distro channels in place, and a fair amount of experience behind it. Once last year in my town, a car blew it LPNG tank while refueling, nobody hurt but the car and the gas comapnies reputation.

Wacky?

[tomknight]

I guess that'd explain why Mazda have bothered to push money into researching this....

Here's a little more info if you weant to do some research.

Tom.

New "drivetrain" setup

[Green Aardvark House]

This would be a boon to consumers, since fewer moving parts (no transmission are driveshaft) would likely mean fewer repairs.

Would automakers be for it? Most likely not. They make a substantial amount of money from repairs and maintenance. And to think of the outrage from auto-repair shops, cutting their business as well.

It's an excellent idea - less weight, much better fuel, fewer moving parts, etc. But there's a lot of opposition ahead.

Who knows..

[Sentry23]

Storage and transport of hydrogen isn't really the problem anymore. Years ago, there were already test with hydrogen tanks that contained alluminium particles, which bind the hydrogen, making it a lot safer to transport and store hydrogen. Safer actually then a tank of gasoline.
(I wouldn't be surprised if these tanks are already widely in use now)

The problem is ofcourse to generate large amounts of hydrogen.
Given the succes of recent tests with fusion reactors, who knows.. we might be using hydrogen to create hydrogen from water.

quite a big if, but who knows.

Really, really feeling old...

[sphealey]

Mazda and General Motors have been testing rotory engines on pure hydrogen since the late 1960's. I certainly remember reading about this in "Popular Science" in the very early '70's. Real cutting edge, wacko stuff...

sPh

My piston engine Jeep runs on Hydrogen

[GMontag]

Yes, my stock 1996 Jeep Cherokee Sport runs on hydrogen. The special fuel has a little carbon bonded with it and some other stuff.

Been purchasing at Exxon and several other outlets that specialize in this revolutionary fuel. They are trying so hard to get the word out that if you purchase more than $5.00 of the stuff you get a discount on a car wash!

New Category?

[GeekLife.com]

For some reason Slashdot gets a lot of submissions of wacko energy concepts

Sounds like there's a need for a specific category/icon.

Addressed in article

[SiliconJesus]

The solar-voltaic energy stored in the garage would enable a small electrolysis machine to seperate the water into its base components (hydrogen and oxygen) for the car's fuel. Presumably this could be echoed on the commercial side, having large `plants` that would essnetially break water into its base components. Couple this with his other invention (the de-salinizer) could turn the oceans into giant fuel fields, that would be replenishing ((2)H2 + 02 = (2)H20). Infinate energy. Viola!

As envisioned by McMaster, Cicak, Guy, and others working on the MRE, the engine is the centerpiece of a revolution that reaches well beyond automotive technology to challenge basic assumptions about energy and the environment. McMaster calculates that 1,200 square feet of solar panels on the roof of a garage receiving 2,200 hours of sunshine a year could, with the help of an electrolysis device no bigger than a washing machine, produce enough hydrogen and oxygen to drive an MRE-powered car 200 miles a day. The oxygen would be bottled in scuba-like tanks that would snap into place under the hood. The hydrogen, more volatile and more dangerous, would be piped around the car's chassis through 180 feet of tubing, divided into 3-foot sections, each sealed off from the next by a set of valves.

Well.. if you read the article

[chuckgrosvenor]

this guy seems to have made a lot more money patenting strange and unique ways to work with a lot of different materials. (At least, it's a lot more than the people who waste their time posting to SlashDot make)..

Revolutions in design have rarely come out of corporations... considering this site is supposed to be Linux based, I thought I would see more support for anyone trying to solve the energy crisis outside of the regular channels, since it's highly unlikely it will come from the gas companies anytime soon.

500 mpg cars, revolutionary engine designs, etc.

[StressGuy]

Years ago, there was all this hoopla about the "Gill Carb." and the supposed conspiricy to keep it out of production. This was supposed to give a normal car over 400 mpg. Eventually, it was finally shut down when it was demonstrated that there simply is not that much thermal energy in a gallon of gas. I've been fortunate enough to see a lot of these alternative engine designs. Many of them are pretty innovative and downright ingenious. So far, though, you always seem to run into something that doesn't work as planned. Bottom line is that the 4-cycle piston engine is hard to beat in terms of practicality and Carnot efficiency. So, this guy is telling me that his motor will not require a drive train. That tells me the engine is high torque with a really flat curve, already I'm skeptical. Add in no lubrication and I must assume his rpm's are low. I won't dismiss his engine out of hand, but I'd need to see the design.

It's not the H2, it's the *simplicity*!

[Anonymous Coward]

It seems that everyone is completely missing the point of this new (and unproven as of yet) engine. The thing that makes it unique is NOT that the guy can theoretically run it on hydrogen and oxygen produced by electrolysing water. What makes it unique is the sheer simplicity of the engine.

As geeks and programmers, we all love to see someone come up with a truly elegant solution to a programming problem. When someone takes years of kludges and condenses them down into a few lines of clear, concise code, it is not only a thing of beauty and mastery, it is something to be desired.

What should strike people about this engine is that this somewhat eccentric but proven inventor has come up with a replacement module for that hideously kludgey block of code called the internal combustion engine. If pistons and rods and camshafts and all can be replaced with such a simple construct, isn't that a good idea? Now, of course, I'll stay in the "show me the code" mode until I actually see a working prototype, but if these guys think they can hash it out, I say more power to them.

We need more like him.

[zeus_tfc]

This guy seems to be just what we need, someone who is willing to concider strange and unusual ideas no matter how far out they might seem.

He seems to have a good grasp of the issues, and makes a lot of sense. He also has quite a few things going for him, such as:

1. Money This guy is worth a lot
2. Reputation He as patents to his name, and has made millions with them.
3. Infrastructure He has come up with an easy way to create and distribute the H2 and O2.
4. Intellectual backing He has the praise of a growing number of specialists and intellectuals

I think this needs watching.

Several interrelated issues.

[nanojath]

There are two distinct technologies here and their feasibility needs to be discussed separately. The first is a novel engine design for converting power into locomotion. I don't have the engineering knowledge to judge this, but there do seem to be some people who ought to know saying the concept is solid.

But it should be noted this isn't anything new. The internal combustion engine is innefficient by nature. It takes a spherical force (an explosion), redirects that into a vector force (up and down in a straight line), redirects that into a circular force, which is redirected into another circular force, finally driving the car. Each of those redirections wastes energy. Moreover, the fact that you have carbon monoxide and other hydrocarbon emissions is a sign of innefficient combustion: complete combustion of a carbon molecule goes all the way to carbon dioxide. There are plenty of legitimate projects to find a better way. Ben Rosen, chairman of Compaq, has envisioned the automotive powertrain market becoming like microprocessors, with independent companies competing to supply the most efficient engine. His Rosen Motors produced a working prototype of a hybrid-electric motor; they've since been taken over but I forget by whom.

Of course, a serious problem is the huge combustion engine and gasoline infrastructure. Even a much better product is not going to take over overnight. The internal combustion infrastructure would keep the economics of conventional motors attractive for decades, barring a serious kink in the gasoline supply.

It is a myth, though, that the automotive manufacturers are blocking this kind of thing. They're all doing research of their own. There is nothing a manufacturer wants more than to obsolete their own product and give everyone a reason to buy the next big thing.

The other technology discussed here is photovoltaic (solar-electric) conversion of water to hydrogen for combustion. I think this is far more theoretical. Not that you can't very simply and reliably bang an electric current through water and get combustible hydrogen and oxygen. But from what I know (and I do have some knowledge on this subject) I seriously doubt whether existing photovoltaic cells are efficient enough to supply the power for even a very efficient automotive engine by splitting water. It should be noted that like anything else, this conversion of electrical power into chemical power represents a loss of efficiency, so the purpose for doing this is to get the benefit of a combustible fuel.

Direct solar cleavage of water to H and O is one of the holy grails of both hydrogen power and solar research; this photochemical process is at the heart of how plants utilize the energy of the sun and hence the source of most energy on earth including all fossil fuels. We aren't there yet. It can be done but it isn't sufficiently efficient to be practical. There are tons of novel catalytic techniques being experimented with, where rather than go through a photovoltaic cell (the conversion of sunlight to electricity of course represents another inefficiency), sunlight is used as the power source to directly, catalytically cleave water. I think within a few decades this kind of thing will start to make significant inroads, provided countries like Iceland and companies like Daimler Chrysler continue to pursue hydrogen research and a hydrogen energy economy.

I don't see anything in the article, however, that suggest this motor could only run on hydrogen. So it may be a valid concept that it much closer to commercial reality.

McMaster Motor site

[kryzx]

Here's the McMaster Motor site complete with a little animation of the engine.

Looking at it helps me understand the way it works. I don't know if this will ever come to fruition, but I sure hope it does. Even if it doesn't, he's a revolutionary thinker with a significant record of success, and deserves our praise and respect for that.

Re:McMaster Motor site

[elmegil]

I find it helps to "get it" if you look at the shaft rotating, and only watch the plate from the corner of your eye. This helps make it clear that the plate isn't really "wobbling", it's simply mounted onto the sphere in such a way that when you have rotation along the shaft, the plate appears to wobble. If you took a quarter, punched a hole through it, and glued it onto a pencil at a 30 degree angle or so, rotating the pencil would give the same effect.

Further Information

[dschuetz]

Okay, so nobody's bothered to check up on google, yet. His web site includes a lot of more detailed information. Check it out, then let's discuss what's there, not just what's in the article.

Yes, the guy's a little, er, fringey -- one of his other projects is an antigravity machine. I'm not saying such a machine is impossible, just that I'd not expect anyone who's not, say, Stephen Hawking, to come up with one.

That bit of weirdness aside, what do people think about the engine itself?

First, the fuel. The article implies that it uses Hydrogen. We've discussed to death the problems with using straight hydrogen as a fuel, which ultimately (putting aside safety and infrastructure issues) comes down to energy density -- pound for pound (or liter for liter), Hydrogen gas just doesn't pack as much punch, specatcular disasters caught on tape notwithstanding, as gasoline. However, the page talks about using a mixture of Nitrous Oxide and Ammonia, ignited with a glowplug, not straight hydrogen. It does speak of a catalyzed reaction being researched to derive the fuels from solar power, air, and water.

Questions: Is it likely that such a catalytic reaction exists? If not, will it take more fossil- or nuclear-fuel energy to create, using other reactons, the needed amounts of nitrous and ammonia? Would that added cost be worth it to reduce fossil-fuel emissions from cars? (let's ignore issues of infrastructure for now...)

Next, there's the design of the engine itself. Basically, it appears that it's an angled plate in a cylinder, with the reactive explosion happening first on one side (causing the plate to rotate around the axis it's mounted on), then on the other. Nifty idea, simpler looking than the Wankel rotary engine, and MUCH simpler than the internal combustion engine.

Questions: Can such an engine really operate, with any fuel? Could you really run it at many different speeds, and if so, how would you manage that? (I'm not personally convinced that you could do without a transmission). Would the "chambers" formed by the rotating plate provide any compression for the fuel (a major requirement for traditional engines)?

Let's not dismiss this entirely, out of hand, as a wacko idea. Look at the web pages in detail, ignore his strong claims and "past performance", and just focus on the ideas presented. I'm intrigued, but don't know enough about chemistry or mechanical engineering to pass any kind of judgement (and I suspect most of the people here don't qualify, either.) Those who do qualify...what do you think?

david.

Hard to compress hydrogen

[AlpineR]

LPG stands for Liquified Petroleum Gas. It's a mixture of propane and butane. The advantage of these gases is that it takes only a moderate pressure at ambient temperatures to convert them to liquids. Liquid fuel is great because it's compact and easy to transport.

Hydrogen, on the other hand, has a boiling point of 20 K at atmospheric pressure (a bone chilling -423 degrees F)! So tanks would need some serious insulation in addition to handling high pressure. Due to its smaller molecules, it also leaks easier than LNG.

The best way to store hydrogen is probably in a hydrogen-rich compound like methanol, which is liquid at ambient conditions. My research group, among many others, is studying ways to efficiently convert methanol to hydrogen + carbon dioxide + water at the point of use. This would allow us to fuel our cars, RV's, or cell phones with convenient methanol and then run hydrogen fuel cells.

Don't worry about the carbon dioxide from that reaction. The methanol would presumably come from biomass or nuclear/solar-powered synthesis that consumes carbon dioxide. The carbon is just a carrier for the hydrogen, and there is no net CO2 pollution.

AlpineR

Re:Hard to compress hydrogen

[Fenris2001]

Methanol might not be the best way to store hydrogen...

A properly designed hydrogen=powered engine would be able to burn slightly "dirty" fuel - such as hydrogen containing a few percent methane.

Adding methane "gels" the hydrogen at low temperature, making it easier to liquefy, store and transport.

This mixture woud still have the advantage of having vapors that are lighter than air, and thus rise in the event of a spill, rather than pooling in low spots and creating an explosion hazard.

Most leaks in a tank come from the seals and joints of the tank, but hydrogen leaks mainly by diffuing throught the tank walls. At high temperatures, this is significant, but at low (~50K) temps, it's hardly a show-stopper.

I'm not bashing carbon-based fuels, just pointing out that there are many alternatives we should pursue in the quest for clean energy.

Quote at the end

[bgarcia]

"So," he reasons, "putting the sun inside our engine makes a whole lot of sense."

It should provide more oomph than putting a tiger in my tank.

I don't think he's all that wacky

[Leven Valera]

From the article:

As soon as he bought his first house, McMaster sprang for a metal-cutting lathe, which he used to build his first rotary engine model in 1944. Though German engineer Felix Wankel and other automakers had been tinkering with rotary designs for decades -- they promised more power relative to weight than their piston-powered counterparts -- technical problems dogged their efforts. In particular, the combustion chambers were hard to seal, and their irregular shape produced excess heat and made them difficult to lubricate. McMaster tried to tackle these issues by changing the shape of the engine, thus altering the shape of the combustion chambers.

Unable to better the internal combustion engine's compression ratio of 8 to 1, McMaster shelved the project and set about making his fortune in a less opaque technology. In 1948 he started his own company, Permaglass, and perfected the process of bending and tempering glass. McMaster's inventiveness dovetailed with the growth of the postwar consumer economy, and Permaglass tapped into the expanding automotive and electronics markets. In 1969, McMaster merged Permaglass with Detroit-based Guardian Industries, forming what is today the third-largest glass company in the world. Two years later he started another company, Glasstech, which in the next 20 years would garner more than 700 glass-bending and -tempering patents. Today 80 percent of the world's automotive glass runs through Glasstech machines. In 1989, McMaster sold the company for $227 million.

He revolutionized glass. Why couldn't he apply the same non-linear thinking to his first project, add modern materials, and make it work?

Right up /.'s alley

[Logic Bomb]

For some reason Slashdot gets a lot of submissions of wacko energy concepts - power from nothing, power from sand, power from a black box, engines that get 500 miles to the gallon...

It's the ultimate intersection between conspiracy theories and nerd-dom. OF COURSE they come pouring in. ;-)

Methonol BAD / Methanol GOOD???

[squaretorus]

Using methanol sounds great to me, generate it from biomass, even from side products of crops - the inedible bits from corn for example. It can be made to burn _relatively_ cleanly already - although I'm sure this can be approved over time.

However, a lot of articles have been popping up in New Scientist essentially calling Methanol a demon fuel. It takes more energy to produce than it generates. By the time you use fertilizers, transport the stuff to the processing plant, run the plant, transport it to the pumps you've used more of the stuff than you can produce!

This sounds like Oil industry propoganda, but its getting a lot of column inches! anyone know anything?????

hydrogen much maligned and misunderstood

[FreeUser]

Aviation types (of which I, as a pilot, am one) have an unreasoning, almost supersticious fear of hydrogen dating back to the Hindenberg disaster. Unreasoning because it is uncritical ... the hindenberg was painted with a metallic grey/silver compound which, it turns out, was basically rocket fuel. Yes, the derigable was painted with rocket fuel, which was ignited by a spark (probably a result of a static electrical discharg). The rocket fuel "exploded", while the hydrogen burned more slowly.

Indeed, your statement:

Hydrogen gas just doesn't pack as much punch, specatcular disasters caught on tape notwithstanding, as gasoline

catches a part of this truth, though more in passing, namely that a tank of hydrogen is less explosive than a tank of gasoline. Meaning, as you say, that there is less energy / volume in hydrogen gas than there is in petroleum liquid (gasoline). Two approaches to this problem are, as implied in this article and the designer's web page, a more effecient engine or, alternatively, an innovative use of chemistry to allow a hydrogen-rich compound to exist as a more dense liquid/solid at room temperature without binding the hydrogen so tightly as to make it useless as a source of energy.

Hydrogen is safer to store, transport, and use than gasoline, by virtue of the very fact that it packs less energy per unit than gasoline. Safety fears are really just that, fears, based on a widely debunked perception that dramatic explosions such as the hindenberg were a result of hydrogen, when in fact it was a result of painting the damn ship with a compound now used as rocket fuel, a compound much more combustible than hydrogen by orders of magnitude. That debunking aside, there remains the perception that hydrogen is this dangerously explosive gas, when in fact it burns too slowly to even explode with the same intensity that a 1972 Ford Pinto's gas tank would when rear-ended.

Re:My conspiracy theory...

[vidarh]

Except that this guy has all the money he needs, and is too old to care much about getting more, and has a great dislike for the combustion engine.

Explanation of engine...

[cr0sh]

I have read a lot of posts here regarding this engine, and I am not absolutely certain that everybody understands how this engine is supposed to work. To be honest, I am not completely certain on how it works, but from looking at the animations and descriptions, I want to attempt to explain it, in the interest of furthering discussion.

I have to admit, the fascinating thing is the fact that it is so simple - so simple that it looks like it could almost be homebrewed in a garage, provided the builder has sufficient machining skills and tools (ie, a metal lathe and mill would be an absolute necessity, as well as a wire-feed welder, among other tools).

Anyway, here is my explanation:

1. The engine is composed primarily of 6 parts: A shaft (1) which is fitted through a sphere (2) and two opposing, on either sides of the sphere, conical ends (3,4), a metal vane (5) which is slotted between the cones, and thus doesn't move - parallel to the shaft/sphere assembly, and perpendicular to the metal vane. Finally, there is the wobbly plate (6), which is fitted around the sphere, and has flattened ends that are up against the metal vane. This plate bisects the sphere, forming two independent combustion chambers. However, it is not attached to the sphere, it does not rotate, and it is not attached to the vane. It merely "slides" against these parts.

2. Now, imagine the metal vane lying at an angle. At the point where one end is touching the cone, and the vane, there is a fuel inlet and a glow plug. Fuel is admitted, and the glow-plug ignites the fuel.

3. As the fuel combusts, it expands, pushing against the plate and the vane, as it races around the chamber, which looks like a expanding wrapped wedge around the sphere. This expansion causes the plate the nutate (wobble) - but not rotate - around ("around" is not a good word, as it implies that the plate is rotating - I must stress that it does not rotate) the sphere. This opens up the chamber, and as the plate slides around the sphere (*), it rotates the sphere 180 degrees, which is connected to the shaft, which turns the shaft 180 degrees.

4. Once the combustion is started, of course the fuel inlet is closed. When the combustion is completed, the plate is now lying at the opposite angle. An exhaust port is opened (I would imagine the opening and closing of exhaust and inlet ports to be accomplished by solenoid valves of some sort), and the inlet port on the other side is opened to cause the other side to fire, to rotate the shaft 180 degrees more, while simultaneously pushing the exhaust out (by action of the plate) on the opposite side.

5. The cycle repeats.

(*) - Notice how many parts are sliding against each other? I can't understand how this thing is supposed to run dry - ie, no lubricant - unless the fuel is to provide the lubrication of some sort. All that friction will get it damn hot if it isn't lubricated and cooled in some manner.

Furthermore, I am not certain how the plate, rubbing up and acting on the sphere (nutating "around") spins the sphere, unless is it by some strange vector motions being imparted by friction.

The interesting thing about this, though - is if that is the case, if the motor shaft is somehow stalled for whatever reason, the engine shouldn't die - it should only become hotter than normal, which may or may not be a good feature.

---

I hope this explanation helps - I hope it is right, I am pretty certain it is. Please discuss below, and comment on it - I would be pleased to know what others think...