ZeroFuel Car Uses Pee For Hydrogen Power
Picture this; you’re driving down some long, flat, dusty road on your way to the Middle of Nowhere when your car suddenly runs out of fuel. You haven’t passed a fuel station in a hundred miles, and you’re at least half as far from your destination still. Well what if you could just get out of your car, unzip your fly (at least for us lads) and fill your car up with your bodies own natural emissions?
Sounds pretty science fiction and maybe even a little gross. But that is the idea behind at least one entrant’s car in the Progressive Automotive X-Prize, an international challenge for alternative, super-fuel-efficient vehicles. A pee-powered car? Well, why not.
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Steven Amendola, a word-reknowned chemist with a long list of publications, accomplishments, and patents is the man behind ZeroFuel. Being developed by his company, Alternative Fuel Sciences, the concept could revolutionize the way we get from point A to B using just P (I couldn’t resist). The idea is centered around the fact that there is a lot of ammonia (NH3) in urea, and within that ammonia is plenty of hydrogen. As we already know, hydrogen can be used for propulsion with existing technology, the biggest problem is the infrastructure. Urea is basically just human urine and it is usually just flushed down the toilet (though it is often used as a fertilizer due to its high nitrogen content). ZeroFuel latches on to the idea that if we can harness the hydrogen components in urea, if would make an effective, sustainable, and easily transportable alt-fuel.
So how does pee become power? Keeping in mind I am but a humble writer and not chemist, ZeroFuel is a mixture of water and carbamide, or urea. Then the ammonia and hydrogen are seperated and injected into the engine. The only emissions are water vapor and nitrogen, the must abundent element in our atmosphere already. The car relies on existing technology to make the process happen, and it can be used on just about any engine.
Who knows, maybe one day gas stations will be but a distant memory, and we’ll all just fill our cars up from home. ZeroFuel also has in the works a home refilling station; I’d like to see the government tax that!
Soure: ZeroFuel
To Verde:
Urine to the rescue. Now some researchers at Ohio University have found that urine makes a much better starting point for generating hydrogen than water. The hydrogen found in urine is bonded much more loosely than in water. So loose, in fact, that by using simple and cheap materials, hydrogen can be generated from urine using 1/3 of the voltage needed to make hydrogen from water.
power 2 the peeeeeeee- poles
So for how can this thing actaully run on Pee?
When are we going to shit in our gas tanks?
well, actualy in water you need a high amount of Voltages to sperate the hydrogen. where as Pee has hydrogen, and its very very lose (meaning its bonds are weak) their for the processes of electorsys to spereate the hydrogen requires 1/3 less voltages and beacuse it has weak bonds the other materials required to make this processes work, are ALOT less expensive than those catalsyst used with water
kthnx by!
@Jim Takchess
Zerofuel is on the x prize entrants list but not under the name Zerofuel.
ALTERNATIVE FUEL SCIENCES
Connecticut (USA)
Vehicle Name: ZF1, ZF2, ZF3
Fuel Type: ZeroFuel ammonia and hydrogen on demand
Class: Mainstream, Alternative, Alternative
Nothing new here, there was a guy in Canada running his 1981 Chevrolet Impala on anhydrous in the 80’s…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8vwmzkn0paM
Hybrids, Hydrogen fuel, non of this is new, its all been thought of before.
Verde asked about using hydrogen from water, rather from urine. Im not chemist either but the problem is the hydrogen in water is bonded much more closely so they need to use a higher amoung of energy to extract the hydrogen. With urine, they only need a third of the power to remove the hyrdrogen that you would need with water. Its interesting to note that they have had batter tech. that runs on urine for some time, however no one has made any commercially.
just think of the revenue stream for the big dairy farms! collection bags for urine that are emptied when they are milked!
The function of urea is to eliminate excess Nitrogen from our bodies. The amount produced is proportional to the amount consumed primarily in the form of meat. Cows can get it from plants and they produce a lot of urine!