[jsb1969]

Has a similar technology been discussed here yet?

http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2003/plasmatron-1022.html

[canis_lupus]

"If widespread use of plasmatron hydrogen-enhanced gasoline engines could eventually increase the average efficiency of cars and other light-duty vehicles by 20 percent, the amount of gasoline that could be saved would be around 25 billion gallons a year," Cohn said. "That corresponds to around 70 percent of the oil that is currently imported by the United States from the Middle East."


If my math is correct, this would save the world 7MM bbls of oil per year.

This seems to be a little too good to be true...if we had the technology to save 5% of our global oil intake per year, wouldn't this get fast-tracked?

Sounds fishy. More research.

[small_steps]

Don't know the particulars of the "Plasmatron", however, I do know there is work being done to "clean" the exhaust of diesel engines. There are two distinct emissions that are most undesirable from the diesel, Nox and particulates. There can be a tradeoff between the particulates and Nox emissions, primarly that Nox gets formed at fairly high combustion temps, and particulates at the inverse. The engine can be run, at fairly high temps and efficiencies, but at an expense of Nox emissions. So the idea is to use a catalytic converter, however, this tends to get clogged by the particulate matter over time, so they actually use a bit more fuel and burn the particulate matter out of the catalytic converter every once in a while.

Hope this helps

[grabby]

Injecting hydrogen up to 20% into the engine to clean up emissions will work.

the enrgy comes from hydrogen burning .

The total energy required to push bux X with weight W a distane D will be the same however.

the reason it is cleaner is your burning hydrogen.

now, we all know the hydrogen people understand hydrogen is dead as a fuel.
What are you gonna do with all these hydrogen tanks?
PLASMATRON!

lets use 4 times the power to make hydrogen to inject it into the engine. if all you take track of is the diesel, yes you will burn 7 mm bbbl less a year, but you will USE UP more mml bbl fuels making the hydrogen.

Notice they do not tell you HOW MUCH EXTRA FUEL is needed to form hydrogen. I wonder why not?

It is likely quite a bit more than you "save" .
But if they give enough to ehte republican or democratic national committe there should be a law giveng them tax deductions making it.
too bad.

it is a hydrogen gimmick for the hydrogen industry cause they know hydrogen can never fuel cars by itself.

take everything with a grain of salt.

the above post is only for the fictional world of amrica and is my opinion only not fact.
thank you.

My advice!

Burn GASOLING my boy, but only enough as you need, and a whole lot less than you did last year.
no building new cars and wasting oil doing it.
just cut back travel and driving.

[ChumpusRex2]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('grabby', 'I')njecting hydrogen up to 20% into the engine to clean up emissions will work.

the enrgy comes from hydrogen burning .

The total energy required to push bux X with weight W a distane D will be the same however.

the reason it is cleaner is your burning hydrogen.

[grabby]

But the bottom line is, when you make hydrogen you waste MUCH energy which is overlooked by the fact that you are burning CLEAN which is not true if you also measure the production of hydrgen also (that conveniently ignores the other energy entering the system.

you cannot beat diesel for efficiency.

that potential energy.


I can make another fuel just as useful which is propane injections
which injects propane under pressure in the diesel injectors.
This would give MUCH cleaner burning trucks but would tend to overheat engines though, and if you dont "count" the propane injected, would let you save up to 20% diesel.

Any time you make HYDROGEN it is HUGELY WASTEFUL PROCESS. Something is getting wasted somewhere. a Lot.