Electricity can improve gas mileage

William Atkins
Monday, 03 November 2008 21:47

Science - Energy

The Science News report states that some scientists are skeptical that fuel efficiency can be raised 18% by this process.

They contend that the percentage increase is only from 5 to 10%. But, even if it is, say, one-third of what Dr. Tao's team is reporting (6%, well within the range of these scientists), then it could save more than 100 million barrels of gasoline and 50 million barrels of diesel per year.

That is still quite a savings!

The Science News article reported that this gas-efficiency device is already available at a cost of about $50 per cylinder. The device can be installed on many engines already in use on highways across the United States and in other countries thro

Energy science is one of the major research topics for Dr. Tao. On his website at Temple University, he talks about using electricity to reduce viscosity in crude oil.

He states, "Presently, among all energy sources, liquid fuels, including crude oil, biodiesel, ethane, etc, are the leading source. The viscosity of liquid fuels plays an important role in energy production and energy conservation. For example, reducing viscosity of crude oil can speed up its transportation via pipelines and is the key to extract oil from oil sands and oil shale. Currently, the dominant method to reduce viscosity of complex fluid is to raise its temperature. This does not only require a large amount of energy, but also raises concerns of the green house effect in case of crude oil production and transportation."

Dr. Tao adds, "Recently, based on the basic physics of viscosity, we developed a new technology, which utilizes an electric or magnetic field to change the rheology of complex fluid to reduce its viscosity, while keeping the temperature unchanged. The method is universal and applicable to all complex fluids with suspended particles in nano-meters, sub-micrometers, or micrometers. This technology is energy-efficient since it only requires small amount of energy to aggregate the suspended particles."

He continues, "When this method was applied to crude oil, the exciting results led the American Chemical Society to make a press release on August 23, 2006. Recently we applied this technology to refinery fuels for an efficient fuel injection. The exciting results led the American Chemical Society to make another press release on Sept. 25, 2008."

Dr. Tao concludes, "Currently we are working on projects related to oil recovery from oil sands, off-shore oil transportation, heavy crude oil transportation, biodiesel production, and efficient fuel injection to improve the efficiency of internal combustion engines."