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A Motor Bike Powered by Salt Water?

ATV news interviews Masahide Ichikawa, an inventor who claims to have created a motor bike that only needs salt water as fuel:

Using some sort of solar-powered heater, Ichikawa evaporates salt water and creates sodium metal. Inside the bike, the sodium metal and water are mixed, creating a chemical reaction that apparently powers the bike’s engine.

Ichikawa proclaims that his invention will stop global warming. He thinks his discovery is on par with Nobel’s invention of dynamite. What a modest guy.

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18 comments - What do you think? Posted by James - January 21, 2011 at 7:46 am

Categories: Technology Tags: cars, gadgets, hydrogen, science, sodium, tech

http://twitter.com/koarin Colin

All I could think about is how much it bugged the heck out of me that he attached an American flag to the back. (I’m American myself)
Vonskippy

What a load of crap. You can’t evaporate salt water into “sodium metal” plus tiny amounts of Sodium + Water produces even tinier amounts of hydrogen gas. Ever see a Hydrogen powered car – the entire trunk is one big hydrogen gas tank.
T-rock

Whatever happened to the company Genepax? Another that
had cars running on water

kay

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genepax#Genepax_Water_Energy_System

nagoriyuki

If “Solar power > Sodium metal > Engine” is more efficient than “Solar power > Electricity > Motor”, that’s a great invention.
If not, rubbish.
matt

edisonにあこがれ？？
you know in reality edison was a total asshole.
he should have had his idol been tesla.

http://www.billowykimono.com Senor Science

Nikolai Tesla was the f***ing man!

Any person who dreams of a death ray is fine by mine book.

Mike Gimignano

What a load of crap.
Level3

The only thing more sad is the scientific illiteracy in the mass media that leads to trumpeting this crap without any ability to ask challenging questions.

This guy at least doesn’t seem to be claiming perpetual motion, or turning water into energy directly (though I think the journalists think it IS)
Just another way to convert energy from one form to another to another
solar to salt fuel to motion

The only question is “Is this (or could it ever possibly be) more efficient than the other conventional ways”?
I suspect the answer is no.

I also don’t think carrying around chunks of sodium is a very safe idea for a consumer-level fuel (explodes on contact with water)
RMilner

Sodium doesn’t explode on contact with water.

Rob A

Uh, yeah, it sort of does.

It produces a rapid release of hydrogen gas which is then ignited by the heat of the reaction. It leaves behind Sodium Hydroxide and Water.

Thereby, the exhaust of this vehicle would be a quite-toxic liquid, and could never meet pollution standards.

Let alone the fact that it would require twice the amount of sodium and water by weight that you wanted to produce of hydrogen.

matt

yeah, the more I think about this guys invention I realize it is plagued with major problems every step of the way. For example even if you could convert mass amounts of salt into sodium, what the hell are you gonna do with all that chlorine.

and did you see how his litter solar still came pre loaded with a big heap of salt, you would have to boil a really significant of seawater to get that, and it would take a lot of time, and converting that into sodium metal takes a lot of energy. Where is all that energy gonna come from, the energy fairy?

And he has the gall to get on TV and say he deserves the Nobel prize. ばか！

Level3

Chemistry 101, dude. Literally.
In the days where insurance regulations had almost, but not entirely neutered the chem lab for students in the name of safety, my Chem 101 prof filled the sink with water, pulled out a half-of-golfball size chunk of sodium and chucked in in. A nice big pop.

and then you could just type “sodium water” into youtube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLJ4FH7q0EQ&feature=fvst

RMilner

It didn’t when I did the experiment at school. Possibly you are thinking of lithium, which is more reactive.

helical

Uh no, I believe you are the one thinking of lithium.
Lithium fizzes and “burns” in water. (more likely the hydrogen gasses that are produced in the reaction creates the visible flame if there was any)
Sodium explodes when exposed to water. If you didn’t see a spectacular explosion with such an experiment using sodium, maybe it was a small enough fleck to not produce such a dramatic reaction.

The rule is that the lower you go in alkali metals column with lithium, sodium, cesium and the like, the more violent the reaction when exposed to water. Lithium is at the top, only below hydrogen (which doesn’t really count), with sodium below lithium.

Blaine

Thankfully beaten to death already in the comments.

This basically sounds so similar to electrolysis that I’d be absolutely shocked if there was a huge energy loss in the middle of the process and he’d be better off just running the bike solar.
Naresh_ace

Firstly he tried (congrats) and there is nothing noble about dynamite. Secondly the point that is missed is sodium will keep reacting with water at a electrode to form hydrogen(only sodium is considered, not salt(NaCl) which would release chlorine at the other electrode) so once that question is solved you can pretty much connect the hydrogen to a gas pump to the carburetor and the outlet to air filter (the one through which oxygen is let out). theoretically should work but there must be sufficient pumping of hydrogen (from the electrode) for the engine to move the vehicle. for that you can use a small LPG pump installed in autorickshaws. well the good thing is somebody sorted it out but i have not tried it (yet). like i like to say ‘the games not over till i have won’.
http://www.articlescolumn.com/ Free Articles

wow that is cool

A Motor Bike Powered by Salt Water?

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