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As it has no moving parts, a Water Fuel Cell cannot - by definition – be a “perpetual motion device”. It is simply a process for spitting the water molecule into its’ constituent gases. It is far from 100% efficient. It is more efficient than standard electrolysis however.

There are several other disturbing entries here. The claim that the Water Fuel Cell has “never been demonstrated to work” is nonsense, as the Patent Office takes it’s Section 101 Rules very seriously. It has been demonstrated many times to the satisfaction of numerous patent examiners, professional experts hired by the patent office, and objective third parties as well.

The claim that “It has never been duplicated” is also nonsense, just check out the work of Dave Lawton and others.

I agree with the peer review process, but hey, the Wright brothers never published peer review articles – does that discredit the airplane?

Spreading malicious lies about patent protected technology which in under license is illegal, and opens the Wikimedia Foundation to libel suits and a host of other nasty legal proceedings.

Template:Perpetual motion machine The water fuel cell is a perpetual motion device that was supposed to function by breaking water into hydrogen and oxygen gases using less energy than that present in the bond itself. The water fuel cell was claimed to produce several times more energy than it consumed (for instance, by connecting it to an engine that would burn the hydrogen back into water), and a car prototype powered by a water fuel cell was assembled.

Since this concept violates the first law of thermodynamics and this apparatus has never been demonstrated to work and has never been reproduced, it was met with much skepticism. The inventor, Mr. Stanley Meyer (died on March 21, 1998^[1]), was later successfully sued by some disgruntled investors, whom he had sold "dealerships", and convicted for "gross and egregious fraud".^[2]

Its name notwithstanding, the water fuel cell is not a fuel cell, even accepting it could work. It would be an electrolyser, as it is claimed to produce hydrogen from water and not the opposite. The name "fuel cell" may have been used as it is more captivating than "electrolyser".

Construction

Stanley Meyer was granted patents in the United States and abroad starting in 1989; patents, however, are not equivalent to peer review, and do not imply the findings have been confirmed and reproduced by independent parties.

The fuel cell consists of stainless steel plates arranged as a capacitor, with pure water acting as the dielectric. A rising staircase of direct current pulses is sent through the plates at roughly 42 kHz, which is claimed to play a role in the water molecules breaking apart with less directly applied energy than is required by standard electrolysis. The mechanism of this reaction is both undocumented and in contradiction with the first law of thermodynamics.

Meyer presented his fuel cell device to Professor Michael Laughton, Dean of Engineering at Queen Mary College, London, Admiral Sir Anthony Griffin, a former controller of the British Navy, and Dr. Keith Hindley, a UK research chemist.^[3] According to the witnesses, the most startling aspect of the Meyer cell was that it remained cold, even after hours of gas production as his system appeared to operate on mere milliamperes, rather than the amperes that conventional electrolysis would require. The witnesses also stated:

After hours of discussion between ourselves, we concluded that Stan Meyer did appear to have discovered an entirely new method for splitting water which showed few of the characteristics of classical electrolysis. Possible Theory On How The Water Fuel Cell Works Confirmation that his devices actually do work come from his collection of granted US patents on various parts of the WFC system. Since they were granted under Section 101 by the US Patent Office, the hardware involved in the patents has been examined experimentally by US Patent Office experts and their seconded experts and all the claims have been established.

The claim about amperage appears strange, as amperage measures the flow of charge (and therefore electrons, which have a fixed charge), and the quantity of charge to be transferred between the electrodes to split water is fixed to two faradays per mole water (about 10,700 coulombs per gram). A reduction in the required energy to split water could have therefore only manifested itself in a reduction in voltage.

It should be remarked that neither Meyer, nor Laughton, nor Griffin, nor Hindley have published any peer-reviewed research papers in the scientific literature (as far as can be reviewed on ScienceDirect), which is detrimental to their credibility. Mr. Laughton wrote a generic "Executive summary" about Combined heat and power in the Journal of Applied Energy, but no original research is presented. (An unrelated Anthony Griffin, from Ontario, Canada, can appear in searches.)

Meyer's water-fueled car

It Runs on Water is a video with Stanley Meyer demonstrating the water fuel cell in a car. Meyer claimed that he could run a 1.6 liter Volkswagen dune buggy on water instead of gasoline. He replaced the spark plugs with "injectors" to spray a fine mist into the engine cylinders, which he claimed were electrified at a resonant frequency. The fuel cell would split water into hydrogen and oxygen gas, which would combust back into water vapor in a conventional hydrogen engine to produce net energy. Estimates made showed that only 22 US gallons (83 L) of water were required to travel from one US coast to the other. Meyer also demonstrated his vehicle for his city's local news station Action 6 News. A video of the buggie in action can be found here.

The vehicle failed to work during a required demonstration of the water-fueled car in a 1990 court case. An Ohio court found Stanley Meyer guilty of "gross and egregious fraud" in a case brought against him by disgruntled investors. The court decided that the centerpiece of the car, his water fuel cell, was a conventional electrolysis device, and he was ordered to repay the investors $25,000.^[2]

Patents

Stanley Meyer

U.S. patent 5,149,407: Process and apparatus for the production of fuel gas and the enhanced release of thermal energy from such gas
U.S. patent 4,936,961: Method for the production of a fuel gas
U.S. patent 4,826,581: Controlled process for the production of thermal energy from gases and apparatus useful therefore
U.S. patent 4,798,661: Gas generator voltage control circuit
U.S. patent 4,613,779: Electrical pulse generator
U.S. patent 4,613,304: Gas electrical hydrogen generator
U.S. patent 4,465,455: Start-up/shut-down for a hydrogen gas burner
U.S. patent 4,421,474: Hydrogen gas burner
U.S. patent 4,389,981: Hydrogen gas injector system for internal combustion engine
Collection of information about patents

Other

U.S. patent 6,419,815: Method for producing orthohydrogen and/or parahydrogen, Stephen Barrie Chambers

Notes

^ Infinite Energy 19: p. 50–51 (1998). [1]
^ ^a ^b Sunday Times Innovation 1 December 1996. [2]
^ Wireless World January 1991. [3]

External links

Electrolysis methods for cars running on water
Stanley Meyer Bio from waterpoweredcar.com
Stanley Meyer: Water Fuel Cell.
End of road for car that ran on Water—Text of the article of the London Sunday Times.
Fuel for fraud or vice versa? (On Stanley Meyer)—summary of the article in New Energy News.
Meyer's rebuttal letter to New Energy News.
Interview with Stanley Meyer from the 1995 film, Equinox: It Runs on Water
A separate incident of someone claiming a water-powered car and taking $100,000 from investors
Successful replication of Meyer's Water Cell by Dave For a detailed report, please click here.
German replication of Stanley Meyer's water fuel cell

[1] Infinite Energy 19: p. 50–51 (1998). [1]

[sundaytimes1dec96-2] Sunday Times Innovation 1 December 1996. [2]

[3] Wireless World January 1991. [3]

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