One litre of water will give power equivalent to five litres of petrol
By Boniface Otieno
Technology, it seems, can never stops to startle. Imagine a car running on water!
Mr Daniel Wanjuki, an environmental scientist and founder of Ecosave Technologies Limited, has devised a new technology which, besides saving on the cost of fuel, will help curb global warming.
“This technology uses water as the only ingredient to make hydrogen gas fuel that burns 1,000 times faster than petrol,” says Mr Wanjuki, a Masters in Environment Science student at Egerton University.
He says the fuel can be used in all types of internal combustion engines — both petrol and diesel powered.
“Fuel boosting using gaseous fuel hydroxyl gas into the engine air intake results in leaner fuel combustion,” he says.
At a time when countries are grappling with global warming, the entrepreneur says his technology reduces a number of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide and carbon monoxide.
He says it also lowers combustion temperatures, as in no black smoke associated with incomplete combustion.
“Water as exhaust is an environmental friendly by-product of the process akin to the role played by trees in the environment,” he says.
“The product leads to a cooler car engine as the water particles formed from the combustion of hydrogen gas in the presence of oxygen carry away heat more efficiently than regular exhaust fumes,” Mr Wanjiku says.
Increasing greenhouse gas emissions and fuel prices have lead to a growing need for different approaches to how the world uses its precious fossil fuel reserves.
In the backdrop of the last Copenhagen conference on climate change, motor vehicles play a major role in what scientists call the most serious environmental problem the world faces. The automobile’s main contribution comes from the carbon dioxide (CO2) emitted as the engine burns fossil fuels.
Vehicles emit roughly 10 per cent of global CO2 emissions from fossil fuels, which are the main form of greenhouse gas pollution. Fossil fuels are deficient in oxygen, having been formed through incomplete decomposition of organic matter.
When burnt, fossil fuels take up a lot of oxygen, leading to an oxygen deficient atmosphere that is unsuitable for most life forms, including homeostasis in the human body’s ability to physiologically regulate its inner environment to ensure stability in response to fluctuations in the outside environment.
This might actually explain the disappearance of fragile vegetation and animals from the earth’s surface.
How it works
Usually the car battery’s main function is to provide starting power. The alternator replaces the power used during cranking within the first 15 minutes after start-up. As the alternator continuously generates power for the battery while one drives, the power so generated goes to waste.
Mr Wanjiku’s innovation uses the excess power generated by the alternator to drive an onboard hydroxyl generator. The generator “breaks down” water using nanotechnology — the study of the controlling of matter on an atomic and molecular scale — to produce hydrogen and oxygen bubbles.
That is chemistry at work. These bubbles are actually monatomic (single atoms of the small particles that forms water) in its gaseous form.
In this form the gas is highly flammable, in fact, more flammable than hydrogen. When this gas is injected into the air intake of the engine and mixes with normal air, the spark is strong because this gas explodes/ implodes faster than diesel or petrol.
The result is a more efficient combustion process.
Mr Wanjuki has patented the product and says it will hit the market in the next few months under the name Rainmaker.
He says the main reason this technology has never been adopted elsewhere is the storage of the gas. “This product is unique in that it functions once you board the car, hence removing the need to store the hydrogen, which has been the main drawback in the adoption of hydrogen fuel technology,” he says.
The gadget is powered by the 12 volt direct current from the vehicle battery. The water used is stored in small reservoirs of 1.5 litres to 4 litres similar to the windscreen washer bottle. One litre of water will give power equivalent to five litres of petrol.
Mr Wanjiku says the technology saves fuel consumption by up to 60 per cent but says it can be enhanced depending on the number of generators you install in the car.
The beauty of it is that it does not require major engine modification. Only a tiny 10-mm incision is made in the air inlet manifold to the engine and can be removed from a vehicle without leaving any tell-tale signs. The system allows you to revert to normal fuel without readjustments.
