Page 1 of 2

Air powered technology

Posted: Wed Nov 19, 2008 4:02 pm
by iknowmy3tables
Hey guys It's been a long time I stopped doing projects for money reasons, but spudgunning is still my favorite past time, I might do some projects now to get recognition from colleges now that I'm applying, but right now I need some help.

My Dad works for the government, he's a very experienced engineering and I think now he mostly chooses stuff to give government grants and funding to. He's recently found a new interest in pneumatic technology, specifically the recent air car based on the claims there would be extreme potential for areas of possible use for such air motors. Just by asking him I can tell that he has done very little research himself, he has some guy looking, but with how clueless he was on the specs I think it's to soon to even consider investing on a test. We pioneering spudders and our ghetto ways would never waste money on testing before researching, So I think in many ways our open source society is more efficient than the richest bureaucracies.

So do any of you know any specific numbers, information, or observations about the air car? How strong/efficient are the air motor in these air cars? how god do you think they are?

Posted: Wed Nov 19, 2008 4:22 pm
by jitup
You still need to use energy to fill the air tanks. It is better than what we have now but it is not that great. Sure it is really cool and I want one compared to what I drive now but after a little research it is impractical (like most of the stuff the US government looks into) At this point of time there is not any certain cure all, but I think we need to revise the outdated laws of the '70's and allow the import of sugar cane from Brazil for use in Ethanol. Corn Ethanol is a waste and consumes almost as much energy as it takes to convert it into ethanol. As a sophomore project last year, I discovered how to efficiently produce ethanol out of waste we put into land fills. (not all waste just cellulostic based compounds) right now NASA is looking into my research to see if it holds any merit. (at least that is what the engineer that is reviewing my work said) I am planning on a start up after I can get the money/ inverters together. Though this would ease the fuel crisis it will not rescue us from it. (right now we are not as concerned due to the failing economy) but soon as OPEC has its way gas will be $4.00 a gallon again. I will post a link to some other information that regards on board Ortho Hydrogen production (not my work unfortunately)
http://www.waterfuelcell.org/
check this site out, Stan Myer was a brilliant man. I will build one of these soon as I figure out how the circuitry works.
P.S download the PDF

Posted: Wed Nov 19, 2008 4:26 pm
by MrCrowley

Posted: Wed Nov 19, 2008 4:30 pm
by john bunsenburner
OK i said and tried this alot of times but i shall do so again on this forum:
There are two really good renewable engergys in my eyes to use one is hydrogen made from a base and aluminium cans, its a great way to recylce even thoug really we are not making any energy becuse Al is always produced through electrolosis. The other and bettr is WVO(waste vegtable oil)i ahve made anything from a water heater to a furnace from that stuff and in the US with all the mc donalst it is a great alternative and Bio diesel can be made from it! I could make a post o how that works some time as well.

Posted: Wed Nov 19, 2008 4:43 pm
by jackssmirkingrevenge
jitup wrote:check this site out, Stan Myer was a brilliant man.
Apparently not, scroll down...

Posted: Wed Nov 19, 2008 5:27 pm
by TurboSuper
Y'know, they had a steam engine at one point, isn't it the same idea?

Posted: Wed Nov 19, 2008 6:18 pm
by jitup
Stan myers circuits are different it is not hydrogen, it is ortho hydrogen, it uses on board electricity from your altinator to split the water into oxygen and ortho hydrogen, on demand. no need to store it, all you have to do is step on the pedal and more is produced. You have to read the whole report and schematic. ortho hydrogen is burned like you would propane and when you add oxygen it is almost always a better burn (look at the hybrid cannons) plus his system would get 100 mpg on a car that normally only would do a little better than 20 mpg you truly have to read the whole PDF which can be a daughnting task if you know nothing about circuitry

Posted: Wed Nov 19, 2008 6:22 pm
by TurboSuper
Please, not this run your car on water bullshit again :x

Posted: Wed Nov 19, 2008 6:27 pm
by MrCrowley
Agreed. Keep to the original topic guys.

Posted: Wed Nov 19, 2008 6:32 pm
by jackssmirkingrevenge
jitup wrote:If everyone were running cars on water, it would become as scarce and expensive as oil.
Did it not occur to you that people are running on water, and staying alive is a lot more relevant than a slightly cheaper trip to work?

*ahem* back on topic, it seems some people run on air too ;)

Posted: Wed Nov 19, 2008 6:36 pm
by jitup
sorry about previous post, you must have submitted before I did,sorry if I offended any one and the air car is not that practical for a whole system change. It still requires vast amount of energy to compress the air.

Posted: Wed Nov 19, 2008 6:38 pm
by MrCrowley
jitup wrote:sorry about previous post, you must have submitted before I did,sorry if I offended any one and the air car is not that practical for a whole system change. It still requires vast amount of energy to compress the air.
I heard that it would cost only a few dollars in your electrical bill to charge your car (compress the gas for the tanks).

I think it's in some YouTube video.

Posted: Thu Nov 20, 2008 1:48 am
by john bunsenburner
i have one mad idea: You take nitrogen in a huge tank then put a small valve at the bottom of it, let it sink down really deep into the sea about 3000meters. the Nitrogen wil turn liquid, you quickly open the valve and the pressure will push the nitogen our through a tube up to your boat, and if the tank is really really big, and if you come up with a plan to let the pressure in... then you could make tonns and tonns of liquid nitrogen or co2 and then power cars with it...

Now a betteridea: If you deprive a certain algea of sulphur it will stop producing oxigen and make hydrogen, there is a special mutated kind that makes more hydrogen and a farm(with 10 meter high walls) of the size of texas(that is nothing compared to soy or corn!!!!) would power the world;

Or how about bio gas? all trams in this city(bern, switzerland) our powered on bio gas made from our very own s*it( feces...) they have รข huge plant( about 1km squared) and make it there.

PM me for more info, i am the energy guru!

Posted: Thu Nov 20, 2008 7:41 am
by psycix
John, your nitrogen idea would not work as planned as submerging the nitrogen would cost more energy then you could ever hope to get out of it again.

iknowmy3tables:
I am just in the middle of an "vehicle running on air pressure" project at my university.
We will be designing a motorized bike on air pressure.
Too bad that it will be inefficient: When compressing air and then using to power an engine you will have to put in 8 times as much energy as you can get out of it. (Just what I heard, we still need to do some research on that. We may have crunched the numbers in a few weeks.)

Posted: Thu Nov 20, 2008 10:46 am
by jitup
Ironically, after three and a half months of review, the guy at my local NASA office has finally gotten back to me! He said that my research is true and holds true in fact and it is a very wise solution for people who make their own Bio fuel, but he said it would not be that efficient at the large scale due to the expense of needed materials (Enzymes). So right now I guess it is only efficient for people who want to make their own fuel. The good thing about my idea was that it uses way less energy to produce than conventional ethanol. So guess there will be no start up :cry:

I think it is pretty Ironic that after all this time they have had my stuff they got back to me last night.

Psycix,
Maybe you guys are working on a different principle than what I heard about, because the Air car I know about (I belive it was french, could be wrong) was only slightly more efficient than just using an electric hybrid. They must have made a break through on how effeciently the car uses the air / how it is compressed. :P