Why can’t you just put put hydrogen and oxygen in a tank (with a 2:1 ratio) and make water? What would water be without both?
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The tank would explode from a small spark or a catalyst metal present, the water vapour would violently spread without any use to you. You also need to obtain the hydrogen first somehow. In nature hydrogen is already attached to oxygen or other elements.
You pretty much can do that. The reaction is exergonic, which means it releases energy, so it could be used to power cars or whatever and the only waste is water. The problem is that getting raw oxygen and hydrogen is expensive and energy intensive so it is cost prohibitive.
You can, with one additional step. You just need a small addition of energy – ie, a spark – and the process will make water. However, it’ll release even more energy that’ll probably cause the tank to explode.
You could on theory, but it’s a bad idea. They don’t automatically combust on contact with each other, but any small ignition source will set off an explosion. They used that reaction for the Space Shuttle main engines(the three on the back of the shuttle itself); so the main exhaust was actually steam.
If that chemical ratio wasn’t held, you’d get something like hydrogen peroxide, or water with left over hydrogen or oxygen depending on the way things went down. If you’re really unlucky, the extra oxygen in the reaction would start consuming the container as a fuel…as the Space Shuttle found out on a few tests.
We totally can but 1) it’s extremely expensive to get raw hydrogen and oxygen and 2) it’s an extremely violent reaction. There’d be no use case for that unless you mean powering engines which is most likely not what you’re thinking of
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