Demystifying Agha Waqar’s Water Kit Fraud

This article was published at Rationalist Society of Pakistan's Website and can also be read here www.rationalistpk.org/2012/09/demystifying-agha-waqars-water-kit-fraud.html

Many people in the past have claimed to run vehicles on water. But all of them have turned out to be frauds. It is very simple. If water could be used as a fuel, then it is the most abundant fuel on earth and there would have been no hassle in using other expensive fuels. Every student of basic sciences knows that water bonds do not have that much energy that could run an engine by mere splitting. It cannot be used as a fuel.

People will argue and as claimed by His Excellency Engineer Agha Waqar sb that water is first split into Hydrogen and Oxygen and then this mixture runs the car. For them, there is nothing wrong with this claim except that it is false. Hydrogen is also a very non-economic and inefficient fuel when used in cars. Much research is being carried out on Hydrogen to be used as fuel but the storage, economics and inefficiency are big problems.

Certainly, it is also used in Rockets and there are many countries where vehicles are run by fuel. In California, Columbia and Los Angeles, there are Hydrogen freeways. But the problem is that Hydrogen has a very low energy density in terms of volume, which is three times less than gasoline. In simple words, it means that when you compress Hydrogen to be stored in smaller cylinders, its efficiency decreases. So you need big cylinders to provide more efficient hydrogen and good amount of it to run a car. In expensive cars bigger tanks are used and modified internal combustions are utilized. Scientists are researching new ways to store Hydrogen at low pressure in other perforated materials, but those materials add to the cost of the energy making it more expensive. In rocket fuels liquid Hydrogen is used, compression of which makes it expensive. And the storage of liquid hydrogen requires even more expensive Dewar Flasks as it boils at 20 Degree Centigrades.

What If one provides DIRECT Hydrogen to the car without storing it anywhere? Let’s study this claim. The most efficient and widely used process to produce Hydrogen is by Methane. It produces Hydrogen with 80% efficiency but in the process more CO2 is produced than directly burning methane. Hence, it is not only less environment friendly but also of no use. If you have natural gas, why do you need hydrogen? Hydrogen is used for its environment friendliness and if it is producing more CO2 in its production, then what use is it of? If one wants to provide direct Hydrogen to the vehicle, then he will have to install Methane to Hydrogen converter and then again the source will be Methane and not Hydrogen. One more thing, in this process Water has to react with Methane at above 700 Degrees Celsius to produce Hydrogen, can this plant be fixed on a car?

Electrolysis of water to produce Hydrogen? Agha sb claims that he splits DISTILLED Water into Hydrogen and Oxygen. First of all, Distilled water does not conduct electricity, unless you put strong electrolytes like strong acids or bases in it. In the world only 4% Hydrogen is produced by electrolysis because of the inefficiency and cost of this process. A major amount of this Hydrogen is produced as a byproduct in the manufacturing of Caustic Soda. High energy is required to break up the activation barriers in water in electrolysis. So it is impossible to produce required amount of Hydrogen from 1 Liter of Water with the help of a car battery.

Ok, fine, Agha sb says that he will step up the battery’s voltage and this “ENERGY” will be more to split the water and run the car and again recharge the battery. But Dear, Sir Agha Waqar sb, Voltage has nothing to do with energy. It is an electromotive force which drives the current from one terminal to another. It is merely a force between two electrodes. F=ma, remember? Not Energy. Here the energy comes from electrons. Where will the electrons come from? Can an Air Conditioner be run by 1.5 Volt battery cell by stepping it up to 250V? No! Because you need current, Amperes or electrons for the process. The power remains the same, the current is decreased according to Faraday’s law. Where would that power to run the engine, will come from? Resonance is a concept used to step up or step down the voltage. Without a continuous source of electrons the battery will be discharged within minutes. And resonance does not create electrons hence it does not create energy. DC to AC conversion requires inverters that do not change the frequency of the current and the maximum current or energy is the energy that is already present in the battery in the forms of electrons and not the voltage.

As far as recharging the battery again by the energy produced is concerned. This is a concept of perpetual machines. It is non-realistic. Can this happen that on a water dam you use water pumps run by the produced electricity that throw the water again in the lake and also get enough energy to be used by the people? Once Tarbela Dam is full, you make infinite electricity using same water again and again and divert the other water to India as it is useless to you? (Use “Step Up 3D transformers” of Agha Waqar sb, what an idea Sir g, No?)

Two other very important factors related to Hydrogen run internal combustion engines are autoignition temperature of Hydrogen and air to fuel ratio (A/F). Hydrogen has different autoignition temperature than gasoline, hence the internal combustion engine needs to be modified and as Agha sb claims he can run the kit on any engine, I wonder how does he do it? The result is premature ignition and bouncing back of engine. Secondly Hydrogen’s Air to Fuel Ratio is 34:1 which means 34 parts of air and 1 part of Hydrogen, where Hydrogen’s density is low and you cannot make this fuel ratio practically possible in an ordinary internal combustion engine.

I suggest readers to read basic Physics and Chemistry of O and A levels who do not agree with me, those who want more detail can read a book, “The Hype about Hydrogen: Fact and Fiction in the Race to Save the Climate”by Joseph J. Romm published in 2004.

Furthermore, regarding the people criticizing Dr. Pervez Hoodbhoy’s behavior with the guy, I think what Agha Waqar was claiming could frustrate any person familiar with the laws of Physics, even the other Professor became angry at the end. It is a visible joke and I wonder how people believe in it. Dr. Hoodbhoy can’t teach the man all the laws in a TV show, he could just tell the audience that he is a fraud. No doubt, that media should not bring such people on TV, but again this is a proof that our society is running out of sanity and they believe in anything claimed in Talk Shows. Sadly, today’s Muslim Scientists refer back to Talk Shows, instead of Books. Is this the same nation which once produced scientists like Al-Razi, Khawarzmi and Ibn-e-Sina?