A friend sent me a video showing a man using a gallon or so of water to power his scooter. The claim was that the scooter could go 500 km. The man in the video used a battery to split the water into hydrogen and oxygen and then he burned the hydrogen to generate heat which was somehow converted into motive power. My friend asked the question, “Have you heard of this?”
I assume the real question was, “Is this real?” The short answer is, “No, it’s a hoax.” The longer answer is a little more complicated.
It is possible to use electricity to split water molecules into hydrogen and oxygen. The process takes energy from the battery and creates stored energy in the form of the two gases. It is possible to recombine (burn) the hydrogen with the oxygen to generate heat that can be used to power an engine. When you recombine the two gases you get back the energy that was used to split the molecules. The process of splitting and recombining the water molecules does not create additional energy. You get back only the amount of energy you drew from the battery. And converting heat into motive power is not 100% efficient. You would do better to connect the battery directly to an electric motor and skip the hydrogen/oxygen step.
But yes, the scooter can go 500 km -- if the trip is downhill all the way.
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