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Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Simple new fuel-injection technology applies electric field to increase car mileage and reduce emissions

Researchers at Temple University in Pennsylvania installed an electrically-charged tube around a car's fuel line near the fuel injector and resulting in an increase in mileage from 33 mpg to 37 mpg. Based on a principle called electrorheology, the field reduces the fuel's viscosity, effectively atomizing the fuel droplets, increasing the mileage while decreasing emissions. From the study’s abstract:

“Because combustion starts at the droplet surface, smaller droplets lead to cleaner and more efficient combustion. Both laboratory tests and road tests confirm our theory and indicate that such a device improves fuel mileage significantly. The technology is expected to have broad applications, applicable to current internal combustion engines and future engines as well.”

The study will be published in the November 19^th issue of ACS’s publication, Energy and Fuels.

The technique is relatively simple to implement in future car designs, or even as a retrofit.

Lower pollutants, a 20% increase in fuel efficiency – when can we buy this?

Related entries in: Automotive | Power Sources/Controllers |

Reader Comments

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at 9/30/2008 1:54:00 PM, Mustangman said:
I had to look at my calendar first to make sure this was not April 1st. Having said this, if this is for real, I hope that a patent has been applied for and that the results are independently validated. This will pose a great chance for snake oil representatives to sell cheap (non functional) knock offs. I will reserve other comments until I get a chance to read the entire study. An electric field (what voltage) in the vicinity of a highly flamable liquid........I am assuming the injector system was modified with a non conductive component to apply the field. This could be interesting, we will see...........

at 9/30/2008 2:06:00 PM, Sleeperz said:
Sounds like the old technology of using cow magnets around the fuel line to increase mileage. The ads were in the back of Popular science in the last century.

at 9/30/2008 2:21:14 PM, idontgetit said:
I don't understand how the fuel spent 5 seconds in the electric field without having a second fuel tank to act as a reservoir. The pictures show a device far too small to hold that much fuel. Also, the experimental data listed some 100psi fuel pressure. I don't know what typical diesel fuel pressures are but the link from: autorepair.about.com/cs/faqs/l/bl015h.htm says it should be 5 to 19psi?

at 9/30/2008 2:59:21 PM, Dr J said:
I was told about this 3 yrs ago. Eetman theory also comes into play where electromagetism imparts not only extra speed on the electrons, but also extra energy. Eventually someone will produce your ideas, if you don't do it yourself.

at 9/30/2008 8:58:35 PM, Niche said:
I did something like that almost 15 years back, lifted my fuel rail to 300v - funny times back then.. ! Didnt think petrol had the property suggested in the article but it can hold a charge if its an insulator, sort of gets upset if you add alcohol as that conducts electricity fairly well.

at 10/1/2008 8:37:31 AM, Meredith Poor said:
A friend of mine who studied engineering at University of Illinois told me one of the test questions they give is "given that gasoline is a liquid spray in the carburator throat, by the time it is at the compression stage in the cylinder it is fully vaporized. True False." The correct answer was true. In short, gasoline is not in droplet form by the time it's ignited. There may be other effects at work, but droplet surface conditions are not meaningful in this context.

at 10/6/2008 8:56:52 AM, W17053 said:
How much electricity is used to create their Cow Magnets? It would probably use too much electricity to be practical.

at 10/9/2008 3:39:58 PM, Jason said:
It is correct that the goal is to ignite a mixture of fuel vapor and air, not atomized fuel and air. The concept is valid.

at 10/10/2008 9:08:16 AM, Headhunter said:
An auto mechanic most of my life, gas turbine specialist, and efficiency freak, I believe this may have some merit. Although it isn't any kind of cure all. Fuel atomization is critical for a complete burn. Fuel droplets will tend to accumulate or condense the longer they take to arrive to the combustion cycle, thus fuel injection pressures have dramatically increased (60psi and up). Inducing a static charge will help to stratify the fuel spray and concevably improve combustion and the resultant yield of each gram of fuel. Considering fuel burn efficiency is currently about 40%, there is a lot of room for improvement.

at 10/14/2008 3:08:59 PM, Jonathan Williams said:
Wouldn't heating the fuel also reduce the viscosity? Headhunter, how do you define fuel burn efficiency? That one, I'm not familiar with. Are you referring to the Carnot cycle? Or are you saying that we only burn 40% of the fuel that goes into the engine? (Not likely given the nearly stoichiometric operation of modern engines.)

at 10/14/2008 3:16:59 PM, pgdion said:
Interesting, I will look forward to more info. BTW - magnetic fields and electric fields aren't the same things. This isn't cow magnets. It might not work any better but it's still not the same thing. Also, typical Fuel injection pressure is about 40 to 60 psi depending on the vehicle. That 9 to 15, that was back in the day of carburetors. Oh yea, and fuel does have droplet properties in the engine (even after compression) ... it's one of the main advantages that fuel injection has over carburetion (hence the higher pressure to 'atomize' the fuel through the small openings in the injectors). Nice articles today Margery.

at 10/14/2008 6:29:41 PM, Brooks Lyman said:
"cow magnets" - or a more up to date version using NdFeB or SmCo magnets - use permanent magnets. It apparently works - just make sure the magnetic field passes through the feed line (non-ferrous) to the fuel injectors or carburetor. You can also use a similar approach on the water pipe (again, copper or plastic only) in your house which cuts limestone, etc. deposits in your water heater, washing machine, etc. Both good do-it-yourself projects!

at 10/15/2008 2:42:51 AM, Saigua said:
Perhaps more sensible as en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil-drop_experiment (Milliken.) Burn efficiency is 100% if you get CO2 and H2O (failing mass < 0.005 of the cylinder charge. ) No love for the engine that coughs out double-wall carbon nanotubes over the one spewing nitrates and aromatic miasma (for the catalytic converter to burn,) sorry. Operation efficiency then steps in to differentiate between a block at even running temperature and melted or blown cases. True, fuel pumps run 8-15psi (rarely to 35 to suffer supercharging)...100psi would be a nozzle differential condiion from the solenoid charge to cylinder. Globs pass in and out of the field. The good news is that fluid gas/air furnaces (pulse or not) most all have this feature even without field-wire current limiting. The bad news of course is that your car only has fiber optics to the nozzle/inlets, right?

at 10/16/2008 8:11:47 AM, Policebox said:
I am amazed at how confused some of these posts appear to be, at least you guys should brush up on your writing skills. I can see very easily how better atomization of the fuel leads to faster and more complete combustion, which in turn would improve fuel efficiency. I don't see how an electric field across the fuel line would do this. The higher pressure they cited would suggest a smaller oriface. I can see that doing it. To Meridith Poor's comment, there is no carborator in a fuel injection engine.

at 10/16/2008 4:40:59 PM, JetJock said:
I can think of a number of ways to fine-tune a mist of fuel before it is combusted. However, the combustion engine is doing it the same basic way it has been doing it for many decades. A real combustion chamber with today's technology should be quite different based on what many of you appear to know. I am frustrated because our efforts to understand the technology presented in this article assumes that the basic engine designs will not change. If an idea like a field around an intake chamber can be determined to work even in the slightes, then a thousand different better ideas for a combustion to power system can also be invented that is much greater than 40% efficient.

at 10/27/2008 1:24:14 AM, jitu said:
really it''s a good topic to heared, since a big problem in todays world is The pollution and the cost , since we can minimise the pollution rate aswell As can increse the mileage rate of vehicles a good context to be published but the electrically charged tubes should be available in a lot ,

at 11/5/2008 11:44:33 AM, Bernoulli said:
There is another way to get smaller droplets: add a few oz. of acetone to a tankful of gasoline. That resulted in >10% increase in mi/gal, measured over several tankfuls.

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