Description of U.S. Patent ~4,295.816 and
California Air Resources Board Executive Order D-134
Presented by
JOEL ROBINSON
Technical Director of National FuelSaver Corporation
to the
American Chemical Society
Annual Meeting, April 11, 1984
St. Louis, Missouri
The following is only a part of the whole speech.
First of all I wish to thank Dr. Joseph Raksis for inviting me to speak to you.
As you have read from the program I was invited to speak on the Homogeneous Catalysis of Gasoline Combustion with Platinum and Rhenium. I must clarify that our work was not done by chemists, but rather by observers and appliers of chemistry. Therefore this is more of an historical document than a technical one. We observed several limitations in the area of gasoline combus- tion that we felt could be eliminated simply by applying the known chemistry in a different manner
There are three areas that I would like to review with you. The first is those limitations presently inherent in the combustion processes of gasoline. The second area is how those limitations have been eliminated elsewhere, and the third area is our application of those solutions to the original limitations.
Much to the dismay of mechanical engineers, the burning of gasoline in an automotive engine is not an act of chemical perfec- tion. A great deal of the fuel simply leaves the engine without burning, while another quantity burns late enough in the power stroke to be of little use.
Rather than going into great detail on the EPA Federal Test Pro- cedures that have been used to measure unburnt fuel leaving an engine, as well as research by Ford and Champion Spark Plug, let me summarize that approximately one third of the gasoline that enters an engine leaves that engine unburot. And as you are all well aware, most of the unburnt fuel is carbon monoxide. For every 6 pound gallon of gasoline entering an engine, almost 4 pounds of carbon monoxide is emitted.
About 12 years ago, the federal government decided to do something about the ecology part of this problem by ordering the automakers to burn all the fuel before it left the tailpipe. If it did not burn in the engine, then burn it in the exhaust system. Once fuel has burnt, it is no longer polluting. The automakers met those emis- sions requirements by installing on vehicles something called a catalytic converter.
We all know that a catalytic converter is nothing more than a muffler whose insides have been coated with platinum. We all know why platinum was chosen. It has that interesting characteristic about it that when unburnt fuel comes in contact with platinum, that fuel will burn, when it ordinarily would not have burnt.
In other words, you now have a furnace sitting under the floor of your vehicle which is burning one third of your gasoline and which is throwing that released heat and energy away to the atmosphere. The catalytic converter is the great ecological success and The great economic disaster of the last 10 years.....
How is the Platinum/Rhenium Technology able to reduce siniu'Ltaneou5lv the HC and Co so significantly And why cannot the combustion of the gasoline and air do it by itself?
The problem is that under the ordinary gasoline engine conditions, only about 80% of the O2 molecules go to the radical state of O2. And only, radical oxygen O2 can oxidize. 02 cannot oxidize.
Therefore, after the formation of the H 2 0 and CO, there is only enough 0= remaining to oxidize about 55% of the CO to CO2. The Co that does not oxidize to CO 2 appears as 5% to 6% of CO in the exhaust gases.
Reducing CO. Means oxidizing more Co to C02 Excess air may be added to the combustion chamber to get more radical oxygen, 0= available to oxidize the CO to CO2 And this can reduce the CO to 3% or 1% or even less.
However, this excess air does not reduce total unburned fuel (pollution), because the extra air inside the combustion chamber is parasitic and cools the flame. And as the temperature etc) fewer hydrocarbons (HC) crack, raising HC in the exhaust gases,
Therefore, to have low HC and CO simultaneously, you must either catalyze the cracking of the HC Molecule, or analyze the cracking of the O2 molecule, or both, And one thing is certain. You do not want to catalyze the cracking of the hydrocarbons because if you reduce tire the temperature at which the hydrocarbon will crack, you will have engine knock,
Therefore, you can, accomplish the improved combustion only by catalyzing the cracking of the O2 to O=, without additional air. That is precisely what platinum and rhodium does in our Platinum/Rhodium Technology
By cracking a higher percentage of the O2 to O=, the platinum and rhodium allow more radical oxygen, O=2, to be available to oxidize the CO to CO2 without additional air, and therefore without increasing HC
Therefore the only legitimate test of the complete technology is to adjust the air/fuel mixture screw, at idle, to a maximum of 1% CO, and a maximum of 250 PPM HC after the process has initialized itself ? after about 1,000 kilometers of driving with the Platinum/Rhodium Technology.
Reduction of NOX is brought about by preventing the cracking of the N2 molecule, while and by promoting the cracking of any Nox molecule that may have been formed
This is the second function of the rhodium. The rhodium inhibits the cracking of the N molecule, while catalyzing the cracking of any NOX, while ? as we mentioned earlier ? promoting the catalyst of the cracking of the O2 to 0=.