Water to Gas Conversion - Fact or Fiction?

There are many ideas swimming around that you could potentially run your car on water, and as gas prices continue to rise, the idea is more appealing to vehicle owners than ever before. There is a lot of hype about "Brown's Gas", or hydroxy gas, used to power vehicles. The idea sure does sound good - using water, which costs a fraction of a cent per gallon, to drive your vehicle all the while emitting only water as exhaust. However, before you run out to purchase a kit to change your vehicle to a water-burning machine, please keep reading - most of the facts of burning water do not support the hype that's revolving around this issue.

Firstly, it's important to understand that you're not really running your car on water. Water does not burn and your vehicle requires combustion to run. The technology turns water into Brown's Gas, a mixture of oxygen and hydrogen that is done by electrolysis. This separates the hydrogen and oxygen into a gas that will burn with the right mixture and circumstances. In theory, this gas could burn and be used to run an engine like the one in your vehicle. There are literally thousands of results on Google when you type in "run car on water" into the popular search engine - however, before you run out to sign yourself up for this amazing apparatus, read on.

There's not enough energy in hydrogen - regular gas uses three times the energy that is in hydrogen based on the same volume. If your vehicle gets 20 miles to a gallon and the tank holds 20 gallons, you can drive for 400 miles before you need to refuel your car. If using hydrogen, you'd need in excess of 69 gallons. You can't store this hydroxy in your car - it needs to be stored under high pressure which is dangerous and quite expensive, so you have to manufacture Brown's Gas as you drive.

This leads us to the realization that there isn't enough electrical capacity in your vehicle to create hydroxy. A 12 volt electrical system doesn't have enough juice to run an electrolysis system that is large enough to run your car on Brown's Gas.

Many articles say that the generation systems are small and are designed to only add a bit of Brown's Gas to your gasoline, and they also claim that your vehicle's electrical system can handle this. However, the amount of Brown's Gas that you can create with these systems isn't enough to make a difference in the mileage of your vehicle.

Moreover, it takes more energy to create Brown's Gas than the energy you get from burning it. It takes up to 66 per cent more energy to create Brown's Gas using conventional electrolysis than you will get from burning it in your vehicle.

There are many claims that it is possible to run your car on water, and many types of kits available to do so. However, there are no controlled lab tests that have been done on any of these kit set ups to prove that you can actually run your car on water.

It's also noteworthy to mention that many new vehicles' warranties will be void if you install one of these conversion kits because they interrupt the vehicle's intake and exhaust system and fuel systems. Before you buy and install one of these kits, it's best to talk to the manufacturer about installation and your warranty. However, honestly, it is impossible to run your car on water, or any variation of water with any real savings at all.