Design and construction of a car automated by chemical processes

Abstract

The need for affordable and efficient alternative energy sources is a defining issue of the twenty-first century that is receiving growing attention from both the scientific community and the public. While hydrocarbons have driven a majority of the world’s energy consumption for over a century, such sources are both unsustainable and environmentally detrimental. Hence, this research has been carried out to focus on the use of chemical processes to control a vehicle known as MODEL C, which was developed and modelled using a 3D computer graphics software called BLENDER, without the use of any form of internal combustion engine fuel in order to eradicate any form of hazardous emission. MODEL C is a chemical engineering car that is powered by chemical reactions. The car design is composed of separate processes for starting and stopping. The energy to move the car was taken from the sealed lead acid battery which consisted of two plates, viz. lead peroxide for the positive and sponge lead for the negative of which both plates were immersed in an electrolyte (sulphuric acid) for the conversion of chemical energy into electrical power. An iodine clock reaction was used in conjunction with a light dependent resistor (LDR) and a circuit board to stop the car after the reaction was going to completion. In this case, the iodine and the potassium iodide formed a complex with the starch solution that turned it black after a certain amount of time. This was based on the concentration of sodium thiosulphate that allowed the manipulation of how far the vehicle could travel at constant velocity.