Boost a car's fuel efficiency with an electric field (Temple University research)

[CaptainPanic]

You may have heard that there are many stories on the internet about adding some magnets somewhere in your engine to make it run more efficient. On most scientific forums and websites, these stories were put in the category of hoaxes, nonsense and such.

 

I recently found an article which seems to come from a more reputable source: Philedelphia's Temple university. They too claim that an electric field will significantly increase the fuel efficiency of the car (a diesel Mercedes), because the viscosity of the fuel is reduced in the electric field. This in turn makes the fuel injection more efficient.

 

I'm not convinced, mostly because I don't understand how it's supposed to work.

 

I have 2 questions for you all:

 

1. How can combustion become more efficient (by as much as 20%) when the exhaust of a car engine is already very low on uncombusted materials? (I have little data on the combustion efficiency of a standard car). I always thought that the main loss of efficiency came from the fact that so little of the combustion energy is turned into motion, rather than incomplete combustion. I have a strong feeling that kinetics of the combustion play a role here, but I'm not sure how those kinetics interact with the rest of the system.

 

2. How does an electric field influence viscosity? Is that because molecules try to line up? Does that then also influence the density? And why would it work with a non-polar fuel such as diesel? Surely, a linear hydrocarbon doesn't care much about an electric field? The chemical composition of diesel is 75% alkanes (paraffins) and 25% aromatic components. None of these are very polar.

[J.C.MacSwell]

You may have heard that there are many stories on the internet about adding some magnets somewhere in your engine to make it run more efficient. On most scientific forums and websites, these stories were put in the category of hoaxes, nonsense and such.

 

I recently found an article which seems to come from a more reputable source: Philedelphia's Temple university. They too claim that an electric field will significantly increase the fuel efficiency of the car (a diesel Mercedes), because the viscosity of the fuel is reduced in the electric field. This in turn makes the fuel injection more efficient.

 

I'm not convinced, mostly because I don't understand how it's supposed to work.

 

I have 2 questions for you all:

 

1. How can combustion become more efficient (by as much as 20%) when the exhaust of a car engine is already very low on uncombusted materials? (I have little data on the combustion efficiency of a standard car). I always thought that the main loss of efficiency came from the fact that so little of the combustion energy is turned into motion, rather than incomplete combustion. I have a strong feeling that kinetics of the combustion play a role here, but I'm not sure how those kinetics interact with the rest of the system.

 

2. How does an electric field influence viscosity? Is that because molecules try to line up? Does that then also influence the density? And why would it work with a non-polar fuel such as diesel? Surely, a linear hydrocarbon doesn't care much about an electric field? The chemical composition of diesel is 75% alkanes (paraffins) and 25% aromatic components. None of these are very polar.

 

It does seem like a credible source.

 

But for the reasons you mention it sounds implausible unless it somehow improved the timing of the combustion as well, where the timing was off. (grasping at straws here)

[swansont]

Found the paper, in case anyone's interested in reading it rather than press releases.

 

http://pubs.acs.org/doi/pdf/10.1021/ef8004898?cookieSet=1

 

In fact, refinery fuels, such as diesel fuel and gasoline, are made of

many different molecules. They can be regarded as liquid suspensions

if we take the large molecules as suspended particles, and

the base liquid is made of small molecules. Under a strong electric

field, the induced dipolar interaction makes the large molecules

aggregate into small clusters. Similarly, this change reduces the

effective viscosity of refinery fuels.

 

It's the response to an induced dipole moment rather than a natural dipole moment.

 

They did actual measurements of droplet size with and without the electric field.

[insane_alien]

i can believe that the viscosity is lowered but the gains are still going to be quite low from practical stand point. i suspect the 20% number came from the difference between the maximum thermodynamic efficiency of an IC engine and the actual thermodynamic efficiency being reduced by 20%. this would probably net you around 0.0x miles per gallon extra. IC engines are pretty good these days.

[John Cuthber]

How much of the power from a diesel engine goes into driving the injection system?

If you saved all that power by making the stuff superfluid would you save 20%?

Looks like balderdash to me.

 

As for "In fact, refinery fuels, such as diesel fuel and gasoline, are made of

many different molecules. They can be regarded as liquid suspensions

if we take the large molecules as suspended particles, and

the base liquid is made of small molecules. "

No, they aren't. If your diesel has lots of volatile stuff (small molecules) in then it's dangerously flammable. If there's too much long chain stuf then it waxes in cold weather. They refine diesel to a fairly narrow range of boiling point (and, therfore molecular size).

If you put a field across something you tend to induce charges on it, these seek to align so that they atract one another. The forces involved in liquid viscosity are the atractive forces between molecules, and you may have just made them stronger.

A lot of the molecules in diesel oil are long chain hydrocarbons. Under the influence of a field these will straigthen out.

The long chans will tangle better than the wound up ones.

 

I really don't think much of this idea.

[swansont]

Fortunately the idea seems straightforward enough that it's likely someone else will come along and test it, to either confirm or deny the efficiency claim.

[CaptainPanic]

Found the paper, in case anyone's interested in reading it rather than press releases.

 

http://pubs.acs.org/doi/pdf/10.1021/ef8004898?cookieSet=1

 

In fact, refinery fuels, such as diesel fuel and gasoline, are made of

many different molecules. They can be regarded as liquid suspensions

if we take the large molecules as suspended particles, and

the base liquid is made of small molecules. Under a strong electric

field, the induced dipolar interaction makes the large molecules

aggregate into small clusters. Similarly, this change reduces the

effective viscosity of refinery fuels.

 

It's the response to an induced dipole moment rather than a natural dipole moment.

 

They did actual measurements of droplet size with and without the electric field.

First of all, thanks for the link

 

I don't understand why diesel is suddenly such a mixture of different compounds.

 

Diesel is supposed to come from a refinery, where it has been separated based on its boiling point. That generally means that:

 

1. the "large molecules", which can be taken as "suspended particles" do not end up in the diesel fraction, but in the asphalt (bottom) fraction.

2. the light molecules end up in the LPG fraction or another lights fraction.

 

Diesel is a fraction of the crude oil, and all molecules have roughly the same boiling point. Since the majority has no hydrogen bonds (sulphur is removed from fuels inside the refinery nowadays), but are normal alkanes and aromatics, they all have roughly the same size.

 

Now, I also know that distillation never gives that 100% separation that we want... Diesel is definitely a mixture. It is also possible that US regulations regarding diesel are different from European regulations, meaning that it's either more or less of a mess.

 

I don't have enough time for it today - unfortunately. I'll see if I can find out more about types of diesel this week. From the quoted text, I conclude that the efficiency of the invention depends heavily on the type / quality of diesel.

Edited January 13, 2009 by CaptainPanic

[swansont]

It's possible that the results are real and their explanation for it is not correct. I don't know enough to comment on the specifics.

[Externet]

Ultrasonic 'fogger' devices would increase efficiency by 'atomizing' fuel better than any electric/magnetic field

[swansont]

Ultrasonic 'fogger' devices would increase efficiency by 'atomizing' fuel better than any electric/magnetic field

 

Have you heard of any investigations into this?

 

A quick Google turned up

http://www.rexresearch.com/cottell/cottell.htm

http://www.halfbakery.com/idea/Ultrasound_20Fuel_20Atomization

 

so at least some people have been thinking about it.

[Externet]

No, and thanks for the links.

 

Occurred to me that those fogger gadgets on novelty stores could make a carbureted / intaking fuel much more efficient, but have not tried/experimented with.

 

To apply the concept to modern injected engines, some 'injector' device would have to be developed to repeatedly feed batches of fog fuel instead of the current spray.

It may be simple when injecting into the intake valve area, but much harder to deliver directly into the pressurized combustion chamber.

 

In some electronics forums, there is an ocassional request on how to home make water foggers for whatever use; and I forget now where there is data about frequency, type of convenient transducers and other details.

 

Edited- added -> http://www.mainlandmart.com/foggers.html

( some kits to play with )

 

Miguel

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Merged post follows:

Consecutive posts merged

A nice find :

 

 

Miguel

Edited January 16, 2009 by Externet
added link