Synthetic Fuels With Enhanced Mechanical Energy Output
Fuel blends and processes for producing a fuel unit blend to replace gasoline or supplement the apparent energy density of diesel or other fuel. The fuel unit blend comprises a base combustive fuel component that produces excess heat, which heat activates and sustains reactions of secondary detonative fuel components. The fuel mixture including a detonative fuel component blended with a stabilizing fuel component is dynamically stable, allowing the detonative fuel component to survive the combustion of the base combustive fuel component. The fuel blend produces first deflagrative combustion and then detonative or explosive waves in an internal combustion engine so as to produce maximum effective torque on the engines piston. A secondary effect is provided when the exhaust gas is cooled, increasing the Carnot thermal efficiency of the engine. The fuel blends may be diluted with a base combustive fuel to form a synthetic fuel for use within an internal combustion engine. The synthetic fuels also have application in mining, demolition, and military applications as explosive trains including a primary fuel explosive and a secondary explosive comprising the core polar material. Detonation or explosion of the secondary accelerates the combustion products of the primary fuel.
1. The Field of the Invention
The present invention is in the field of fuel compositions, for example, those used within internal combustion engines. Such engines may be used in various vehicles and other applications, including automobiles, trucks, locomotives, airplanes, and electric generators. Such engines may comprise four cycle or two cycle engines.
2. The Relevant Technology
For any given mechanical design a range of possible dynamic reactions will allow an engine to create useful work from molecular chemical transformations by chemical and/or physical processes. For example, Rudolf Diesel's original diesel engine first ran on peanut oil and Henry Ford designed his Model T to be a flexfuel vehicle running on gasoline or alcohol (e.g., methanol) and proclaimed that alcohol was the fuel of the future.
Gasoline, the average American's idea of a “fuel”, is not a homogenous substance. Rather, it is a mixture of hundreds of different molecules and additives to impart specific characteristics, such as corrosion resistance. Petroleum-based internal combustion engine fuels are typically produced by being separated from crude oil by distillation and isolating predominately a distribution of alkane compounds centered around 8 carbons (octane) for gasoline and 12 carbons (cetane) for diesel.
Nicolas Carnot was a French physicist and military engineer who, in his 1824 “Reflections on the Motive Power of Fire”, gave the first successful theoretical account of heat engines, now known as the Carnot cycle, thereby laying the foundation for the second law of thermodynamics. He is often described as the “father of thermodynamics”, being responsible for such concepts as Carnot efficiency, Carnot theorem, the Carnot heat engine, and others. The maximum efficiency is defined as the change in temperature between the combustion temperature and the exhaust temperature divided by the combustion temperature.
Political, economic, as well as chemical factors, can determine a fuel's composition. Consider the introduction, then abandonment, of tetra-ethyl lead, the “Farm Belt Subsidy (51 cent/gallon)” for 10-15% corn-based ethanol in gasohol, E-85 (with 85% ethanol in summer and 70% in winter), or the California state ban on MTBE, along with many more examples of additives and compositional restrictions. In China, an M-85 gasoline substitute and M-15 gasohol made from coal are available. Gasoline and diesel, each including hundreds of components, as well as methanol and ethanol, which are largely single chemical component fuels, use additives to achieve desired lubricity, anti-corrosive, anti-foam, and other characteristics to make them suitable as fuels in a particular use. MTBE was added to gasoline to provide oxygen to reduce emissions. Ethanol has replaced MTBE, and is also used to provide oxygen. There is currently a 51 cent per gallon tax credit for use of ethanol in the US, so oil companies can add 10%, or now 15% for use in newer vehicles, to reduce the cost of the fuel. The consumer may pay less per gallon for E-85, but this price reduction is often less than the decrease in energy per gallon that is reflected in a reduction in the miles per gallon (MPG) provided by such fuels.
A renewable characteristic of fuels is clearly desirable. Ethanol made from corn, sugar, algae, or of other vegetable origins, as well as biodiesel made from animal or vegetable fats, is considered renewable. Methanol may be made in a two step process from coal or a simplified one step process from natural gas (which is largely methane). The natural gas can come from renewable feed stocks of biogas from sludge digestion within landfills, from wood, or other organic matter.
The world first used carbon based fuels in the form of wood, peat, and coal. Over time, the world began using petroleum derived hydrocarbons to burn hydrogen with carbon. Such petroleum based hydrocarbons (such as gasoline and diesel) provide a hydrogen to carbon ratio between about 2 and 3 to 1. Now alcohols (particularly methanol) offer even greater hydrogen content in the fuel. Each hydrogen contains twice the energy on combustion of a carbon with 1/12th the weight, and produces water and not carbon dioxide. These are very desirable conditions associated with hydrogen as a fuel in terms of its impact on the environment. The hydrogen to carbon ratio of hydrocarbons is typically between 2 and 3 to 1, with ethanol providing 3:1 and methanol providing 4:1.
Fuels, particularly petroleum-based fuels, have been generally viewed to be both (a) combustive agents and (b) compositions designed to foster, or average-out, heterogeneous chemical reactions. Fuels are often designed to be fungible in their particular compositional mix. For a given volume of fuel added to the active “combustion” chamber of an engine, the induced chemical transformation is considered to be a single-valued, average “burn”. For a gasoline or Otto-cycle four-stroke engine, the effect is ideally defined to be: adiabatic compression, heat addition at constant volume, adiabatic expansion, and rejection of heat at constant volume. For a diesel engine, the effect is ideally defined to be: isentropic compression, reversible constant pressure heating, isentropic expansion, and reversible constant volume cooling. The effect is summarized as: Work out (Wout) is done by the working fluid expanding against the piston, which produces usable torque.
There is a body of literature that teaches the following limitations and rules for designing fuels for internal combustion engines, which rules are commonly used by persons designing such fuels:
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- 1. A class of compounds used as cetane number improvers in diesel, that when added to gasoline, have no effect on the performance of the gasoline;
- 2. Acetone, when added to gasoline, improves the mileage up to a dosage of about 3 fluid ounces per 10 gallons of gasoline and beyond that dosage, a further increase in acetone dosage decreases the mileage from the 3 oz/10 gal peak. At a dosage of approximately 6 ounces per 10 gallons of gasoline the mileage is approximately the same as with no acetone; and
- 3.30% by volume of nitro methane in methanol is the minimum dosage of nitromethane that can be used as a fuel.
There are other molecular chemical transformations that release energy—and in higher values if properly applied—than mere combustion. Combustion waves come in subsonic (deflagration) and supersonic (detonation) values within their respective limits of flammability or detonation. (Combustion, 4th Ed., I. Glassman and R. A. Yetter, © 2008 Elsevier, Inc., p. 261-262). In one embodiment, the present invention is directed to fuels, fuel additives, and methods of producing such materials that result in enhanced mechanical energy output. It is believed that this enhanced mechanical energy output may result from an ability to safely commingle and harness different combustion waves in order to make for a more thermally efficient internal combustion engine. Internal combustion engines are typically about 25% efficient. This means that only about 25% of the energy in the fuel becomes useful mechanical energy. The rest is wasted energy, mostly in the form of heat. The most thermally efficient internal combustion engines are diesel powered electrical power generators that approach 51.5% thermal efficiency.
Combining deflagrative combustion with a detonative or explosive combustion wave within an engine can create a far higher effective torque and consequent efficiency by joining the immediate kinetic “kick” of the detonative or explosive wave and the sustained pressure of the deflagrative wave on the piston head during the power stroke. Devising a fuel unit that will, for a given range of combustive fuels (e.g., gasoline, diesel, ethanol, methanol, butanol, or mixtures thereof), intermix to form a composition with the stabilizing and non-detonative combustible material, may be accomplished by devising a dynamically stable solution of the two parts. Methanol has about half the thermal energy density of gasoline, so that two gallons of methanol are required to provide the same thermal energy as one gallon of gasoline. Butanol has about an equal thermal energy density as compared to gasoline. One and one half times the volume of ethanol is required to have the same thermal energy as one gallon of gasoline.
In the present invention, the added materials depart from the conventional Carnot heat engine principles. These materials do not add to the thermal energy density of the fuel, but result in a secondary reaction under the conditions existing in the internal combustion engine in order to create additional mechanical energy while cooling the engine from the inside. In other words, the fuel may be blended to provide the same combustive energy density as measured by calorimetry, (e.g., 128,700 BTU/gal as for diesel), but in which, because one or more of the components produces a detonative or explosive wave, the apparent energy density is higher.
In the present invention, the physical chemistry of the Carnot cycle is supplemented by the physical chemistry of the present invention. The engine provides something of a chemical processing plant with temperatures and pressures available to make the secondary reactions occur. This composition is one where the molecular pressures of the stabilizing combustive fuel continually “cage” a core detonative material whose dipole nature maintains the cage assembly in place until heat is available to overcome the bonding forces from relatively weak dipole attractions. The heat provided by combustion of the base combustive fuel provides the energy necessary to drive a solvation reaction, which breaks down the “cage”, which is followed by detonation or explosion of the detonative material. The detonation accelerates the large mass of combustion products into the piston. The cage allows the explosive material to survive combustion and persist to detonate. If the explosive material were simply combusted, it would only add a small increment to the heat density of the fuel, providing only a small (if any) increase in Carnot efficiency. Instead, the explosive in the secondary reaction is characterized by detonation with associated supersonic velocities to dramatically increase the apparent thermal efficiency of the engine.
Water is known as the universal solvent, having the highest dipole moment density, with a high dipole moment and a relatively small molecular weight. Methanol has a lower dipole moment density, but approaches the usefulness of water as a solvent. The solvation or solution reaction, by which sugar or another material dissolves in water, is an endothermic reaction requiring the input of heat. Detonation of an explosive is similar, as it requires an input of energy (or activation energy) to achieve detonation.
According to one embodiment, the detonative fuel component material may be used to raise the energy density of gasohol, ethanol, or methanol to the energy density of gasoline. For example, a “Smart Fuel” product may be an M-85 product similar to E-85 in that it contains 85% methanol in summer and 70% in winter but with the detonative fuel component at a dose of as little as one part to 1,000 parts and providing an apparent energy density about equal to that of gasoline. By way of another example, a “Smart Diesel” product may be blended with diesel fuel at one part to about one hundred parts of diesel, increasing the MPG of the vehicle by as much as two times. According to one embodiment, a gallon of “Smart Diesel” may contain about 0.1% detonative fuel component, about 0.1% of a stabilizing and enhancing combustive mixture, and about 99.8% biodiesel, which can be made from a constant feed stock such as soy beans.
In one aspect, the present invention is directed to a process for producing an internal combustion engine fuel. The process comprises: (1) selecting a petroleum based fuel to be replaced; (2) identifying its combustive, performance, and energy values; (3) selecting a polar, small-molecule hydrocarbon (e.g., having 4 or less carbon atoms, for example, acetone and/or an alcohol) having a known deflagrative combustion value as a fuel stabilizing component; (4) comparing the known deflagrative combustion value of the fuel stabilizing component to the energy value of the petroleum-based fuel to be replaced; (5) calculating the relative energy deficiency of the fuel stabilizing component against the petroleum-based fuel to be replaced; and (6) forming a fuel mixture by combining with the fuel stabilizing component that amount of a detonative fuel component which will provide an energy density sufficient to substantially equal the combustive, performance, and energy values of the petroleum-based fuel to be replaced.
For a given stabilizing combustive fuel component (e.g., ethanol, methanol, propanol, butanol, their isomers, or combinations thereof), a class of detonative fuel components can be determined through analysis of the dipole density of the other fuel components. The dipole density is the dipole moment at 20° C. measured in Debye of the particular component divided by the molecular weight of the component. The fuel composition is then constrained to those mixtures which will exist in dynamic equilibrium between the molecular compounds found in the resulting solution of the stabilized combustive fuel. A mixture is then formed by mixing a selected detonative fuel component (e.g., a nitro-alkane such as 2-ethylhexyl nitrate) with the stabilizing combustive fuel component so as to form a distributed dynamic “cage” solution in which the detonative fuel component is dispersed within the stabilizing combustive fuel component as a result of the dipole moment of the stabilized combustive fuel component. The fuel unit may comprise a concentrated mixture that may be diluted by adding to another base fuel material.
In another embodiment, the present disclosure is directed to a fuel blend including the stabilizing fuel component and the detonative fuel component (interchangeably referred to herein as a core polar component or material) blended together with a base combustive fuel (e.g., diesel fuel, gasoline, methanol, ethanol, or other combustible liquid fuel). Such a fuel blend provides significantly improved performance within internal combustion engines.
In another embodiment, the disclosure is directed to a similar fuel blend, but rather than being used within an internal combustion engine, the fuel blend is used as an explosive train in mining or military applications, in which the base combustive fuel acts as the primary explosive and the core polar material acts as the secondary explosive that is triggered by the primary explosive base combustive material.
These and other benefits, advantages and features of the present invention will become more fully apparent from the following description and appended claims, or may be learned by the practice of the invention as set forth hereinafter.
To further clarify the above and other advantages and features of the present invention, a more particular description of the invention will be rendered by references to specific embodiments thereof, which are illustrated in the appended drawings. It is appreciated that these drawings depict only typical embodiments of the invention and are therefore not to be considered limiting of its scope. The invention will be described and explained with additional specificity and detail through the use of the accompanying drawings in which:
In the early 1800's the basis for the theory, now widely accepted, of the dissociation of salts and other compounds in water, was lent compelling evidence as a plausible explanation from the observed phenomena that the mixture of salt and water had a lower freezing point than either salt or water in neat condition. From this the existence of disassociation into cations and anions was deduced and stoichometric analysis was recognized. Polarity, wherein one end of a molecule is positively charged and separated from another end that is negatively charged or less positively charged, thus effectively determines, or at least underlies, many physical properties observed in chemistry, such as solubility, melting point, and boiling point.
Just as the ionic disassociation theory was lent compelling logic by the experimental work showing a lower freezing point for salt in water so, too, is there now evidence that small molecules with greater dipole moments can hold together a structure, or form a dynamic “cage”, for larger, nitrated molecules when mixed together in solution. Metaphorically speaking, the “mortar” which holds the structure together is small molecules with relatively high dipole moment density (e.g., greater than about 1.5 D, preferably greater than about 2 D) and the “bricks” are larger nitrated molecules. Furthermore, such a combination produces an unexpected previously and un-known benefit in that the energy density of this “cage”, when used in an engine, is greater than the sum of the energy of the components of the cage when measured by a calorimeter using conventional teachings (i.e., thereby producing a synergistic interaction).
Furthermore, the cage molecule performs particularly well when mixed with about 1/10 the concentration of nitro methane and about twice or more the amount of acetone believed optimal for internal-combustion engine fuels, and allows the cetane-improving nitro compound to positively impact the performance of even a gasoline engine.
Many potential substitutes for gasoline or other petroleum-based fuels are relatively simple hydrocarbons with relatively lower energy density values, when measured in combustive terms. Methane, ethanol, methanol, and biodiesels, for example, are generally considered to be more stable and less combustive than gasoline because they provide less bang for the combustive buck, and because they are generally less dense, and contain fewer carbons and their associated hydrogen atoms. Other potential substitutes are too energy dense; for example, not many attempts have been made to create a nitroglycerine engine. Explosives have generally been thought unusable outside of destructive engineering or bombs.
A process for devising a stable and usable liquid fuel that combines deflagrative and detonative combustion waves suitable for use in internal combustion engines would enable the partial or complete replacement of petroleum-based fuels with fuels that include a higher hydrogen to carbon ratio. As a general rule, the greater this ratio, the cleaner the emissions. The ability to substitute a “Smart Fuel” or “Smart Diesel” for gasoline or diesel substantially lowers the emissions of vehicles and reduces the carbon footprint. For example, for each 100 gallons of diesel saved by use of “Smart Diesel”, one carbon credit is earned, shrinking the carbon footprint of diesel fuel use.
That said, such a process has to somehow adjust the actual effective energy provided within each “burn unit” of the new fuel. In other words, something would need to be added to the lower energy density substitutes that would remain stable until burned, yet provide sufficient extra energy to balance out the greater stability of the base fuel. The process is self-limiting so that over-dosing is not a danger. In order for the reaction to occur, it is necessary to have the core polar material at a given concentration in the bulk fuel. However, this is necessary, but not sufficient to have the desired detonation reaction occur. What limits the reaction, no matter how much detonative material is present, is the availability of heat.
One ultimate application would be to use the core polar detonative material in a power generation reaction with a nuclear power plant. If the waste heat normally channeled into a cooling tower could be channeled into a diesel generator, that heat could be used to drive reaction of a higher concentration of core polar material blended fuel, driving the desired reactions to completion. This may require a specially designed generator engine because of increased internal combustive forces.
Solid or non-reactive molecules would not remain dispersed within the mixture (e.g., they may precipitate out), but too-weakly linked molecules might dissolve during “non-operating” times when the engine was turned off. What is needed is some additive that would continually slip between and amongst the molecules of the stabilizing fuel component, yet remain dispersed rather than clumping or congregating together. This conceptualization of the necessities leads to a process of evaluating detonative fuel components to be added to a basic stabilizing fuel component, as well as the final combined mixture's physical properties and chemical interactions.
II. Hybrid FuelsThe combined, dynamically-stable fuel unit comprises a mixture of components providing deflagrative and detonative combustion waves, wherein the different components are held together in a particular molar ratio principally through the dipole moment(s) of the small-molecule stabilizing fuel component. The detonative fuel component (sometimes herein referred to as the core polar material or component) is homogeneous in composition when measured at the general level of the entire fuel unit, yet it may exist in dynamic equilibrium where it forms and reforms differentiated molecular combinations as the liquid responds to gross motions. For any of the simpler hydrocarbons chosen for the basic stabilizing fuel component, the detonative fuel component belongs to a class of combustible or explosive materials that are defined by reference to the dipole density of the stabilizing fuel component. It will be understood that each of the stabilizing fuel component and the detonative fuel component may each comprise two or more subcomponents (i.e., each may be a mixture as well).
It was observed that a core material of nitro methane, 2-ethylhexyl nitrate and acetone, when intermixed with approximately 94% methanol (the stabilizing fuel component) along with some small amount of corrosion control and lubricity additives, created a fuel that ran in a simple 2-cycle engine to approximate a substitute for gasoline. This is an unexpected result in light of the body of literature which finds that: 1) a minimum of 30% nitro methane in methanol is required and 7.3% V/V with air is required; 2) 2-ethylhexyl nitrate is not a suitable fuel for spark-plug ignited, internal combustion engines and is only used for diesel engines as a cetane improver; and 3) acetone is used at a concentration less than 0.2% in gasoline to reduce the surface tension of droplets of gasoline for more complete combustion, and at higher concentration reduces the combustion efficiency, which is reflected in lower miles per gallon. The test was conducted at about one tenth (i.e., about 3% nitro methane) the minimum concentration of nitro methane reactant and at a far lower reactant to air mixture. Furthermore, the test was conducted with combustion occurring at a lower reactant to air ratio than the lower flammability limit of 2.6% V/V in air.
The unexpected results of the present invention, e.g., such as allowing use of nitro methane at one tenth the dosage believed necessary, make the alternative non-crude oil based fuel an economically feasible alternative to gasoline when the price of petroleum is $50 or more per barrel. Furthermore, the fuel mixture provides an alternative to ethanol blended with gasoline and produces an equivalent mileage rather than the reduction in miles per gallon associated with ethanol blended gasolines. Such blended gasolines (e.g., so called E-85 which contains 85% V/V ethanol) include ethanol in order to reduce emissions. It is worth noting that, on a volume basis, the same amount of methanol needed to add a given amount of oxygen to fuel is roughly equivalent to a required amount of ethanol because, although the methanol has a lower molecular weight, this is offset by the higher weight percent of oxygen in methanol (50% W/W) as compared to ethanol (35% W/W).
The fuel formulation had an energy density as measured by a calorimeter that is greater than the energy density of methanol and less that the energy density of gasoline. Methanol has an energy density that is approximately one half of the energy density of gasoline. However, in the internal combustion engine (ICE) the formulation including the core material performs similar to gasoline as measured by a calorimeter. This difference between the caloric measured value and the apparent energy density may be termed the virtual energy density (VED). The actual energy density in the ICE is the sum of the caloric measured specific energy and the VED. Because the VED is derived from non-caloric functions, the heat associated with combustion is less and there is less waste heat to be removed, making air rather than water cooled engines possible when the formulation including a core material is used as a fuel.
The present invention teaches that a process exists from which, for a given basic stabilizing fuel component (which will comprise the vast majority of the fuel mixture) whose energy densities, molar and solvent characteristics are known and which is preferably one of the simpler hydrocarbons (e.g., having 8 or less carbons, more preferably 4 or less carbons, and in one embodiment having 1 or 2 carbons), a suitable balancing fuel additive (i.e., the detonative fuel component) can be determined that will produce the requisite VED when the two are combined for use within an internal combustion engine. Although the value of the deflagrative and detonative effect within any given ICE may depend in part on the fuel mix which the ICE was designed for, one may assume that most engines were designed to use standard octanes of gasoline or standard cetanes of diesel. Knowing what the effect of the VED must be, and also knowing the values for the basic stabilizing fuel component, one can determine a set of possible fuel additives which will provide the combined deflagrative and detonative effect. This may be done by determining a specific molar ratio of a given compound in the core that needs to be maintained based on the selection of the compound(s) that serve as the explosive and the one or more cage-forming compounds. Further, the cage materials preferably have a dipole energy density (DED) in the range of twice the DED of the solvent portion of the core material and in the range of 25% or more of the DED of the explosive material of the core material (e.g., a nitrogen containing explosive such as a nitro-alkane).
The process, in a first example, was to start with the 2-ethylhexyl nitrate at several percent (e.g., up to about 5%) in methanol and then add nitro methane in the percent range (up to about 5%). It was found that about 3% V/V of nitro methane and about 2% V/V 2-ethylhexyl nitrate approximates optimum concentrations. In other words, lower or higher concentrations resulted in lower performance of the engine. The engine's performance was further improved when acetone was added and it was found that about 1% V/V was an optimum concentration (i.e., reduced performance occurred at higher and lower concentrations). Incidentally, this is about 3 to 5 times greater than the conventionally understood optimal acetone concentration shown in
The DED of the methanol and water are roughly in the same range (e.g., 1.7 D and 32 g/mol for methanol and 1.85 D and 18 g/mol for water. Both methanol and water are small polar protic solvent molecules. An analogy may be made here that water is the universal solvent, and methanol assumes a similar role of solvent in some embodiments of the fuel mixture.
The following calculations, which are presented for the analysis of the detonative fuel component of the fuel mixture, may not include all of the additives, particularly where their amount is less than about 1 percent (often in the range of 1/10 of 1% or less). It also is important to note that the core material, like nitroglycerine, typically cannot be shipped in its “pure” form, as such explosives are often subject to explosion on shock. Again using the same analogy, methanol, preferably at a minimum of about 28.5% V/V, is used to stabilize the formulation against shock explosion just as diatomaceous earth or clay was added by Nobel to make the shock stable form of nitroglycerine (i.e., dynamite).
One theoretical structure for the fuel mixture is shown in
The core structure is subject to detonation by the spark initiated in the confined space during the downward power stroke. The core structure may be fully compressed with the expanding gases traveling at about Mach 1.8 (1.8 times the speed of sound) to impart momentum onto the cylinder. This action sufficiently compresses other core caged structures (CCS) to cause a chain reaction of detonation within the combustion chamber. The speed of a combustion wave is subsonic and is approximated to less than Mach 0.1. An explosion wave travels at about Mach 6 to 10. The detonation results in at least 18 times the momentum imparted onto the piston as compared to combustion that occurs in an ICE fueled by gasoline if we assume the same mass of combustion products. The VED is greater than the DED of the products in the detonation of the CCS. In one embodiment, the DED is approximately one half the DED of gasoline. However at least about 50% of the fuel may experience detonation so the overall VED of the fuel may be at least about 9.5 times (0.5×18+½) the DED of gasoline and the flow rate of fuel may be approximately one tenth the rate of fuel flow in a typical gasoline ICE. Because the fuel contains oxygen, the ratio of air to fuel may be substantially less than that of gasoline. For example, it may be about one third the rate so the overall air rate relative to gasoline is the product of one tenth and one third or 1/30th.
An engine designed for gasoline travel at about 60 miles per hour getting about 30 miles per gallon burns about 4.3 ounces (0.205 pounds) per minute and 3.02 pounds of air at 14.7:1 stoichiometric ratio. An engine designed to use the cage core fuel dispersed in methanol in a non-detonation formulation running at about 60 miles per hour and getting about 300 miles per gallon burns 0.42 ounces (0.0205 pounds) per minute and 0.1 pounds of air at a 4.9 to one stoichiometric ratio. The reduced air flow allows for a reduced number of cylinders to two from four, six or eight and reduced running RPM. So an automobile engine would be replaced by a motorcycle or lawn mower sized engine matched with the fuel feed system of a smaller engine. The fuel could be used with two cycle engines as well as four cycle engines.
The compression of 2-ethylhexyl nitrate at detonation velocity forms the adiabatic compression wave that continues the detonative effect within the detonation limits of both the methanol fuel and the combustion chamber. The amount that combusts in each power stroke is presumed, in one embodiment, to be the amount of fuel (with additive) fed into the combustion chamber by the standard internal combustion engine. Obviously, other engines, with larger cylinders, stronger metallurgy, lower cycle speeds, or other design changes (e.g., two-, four- or six-stroke, Stirling engine, Wankel engine, marine diesel, power-station diesel, or other use engines) will have their own optimal fuel+additive formulations. These may be devised through the same process and calculation of needs, limitations, and molecular qualities as for the above described embodiment.
In a preferred embodiment, the core material may be blended with the solvent (e.g., methanol) to produce a shock-stable product at about 28.5% or more methanol. For example, concentrations of methanol may be up to about 95% V/V to make a fuel substitute or a replacement for the ethanol that is blended in US gasoline. For example, one typical blended ethanol gasoline includes up to 10% V/V ethanol, while other formulas may include higher fractions of ethanol (e.g., a winter formula biofuel may typically contain about 85% ethanol and about 15% gasoline to provide sufficient volatile concentration to initiate combustion at colder ambient conditions, another formulation uses 70% ethanol and 30% gasoline).
The use of the core material as a substitute for ethanol blended gasoline at 10 or 85% V/V is favored because the products will have similar cost but the methanol enhanced with the CCS has a VED equal to gasoline so the fuel will produce similar mileage as gasoline fuel. An additional and substantial advantage of methanol vs. ethanol as a fuel is that methanol may be readily manufactured from methane gas present in biogases from refuse, compost, and natural gas, not from food products such as corn, typically required to make ethanol. The importance of this difference is underscored by the UN position against ethanol as a fuel because the corn needed to produce one gallon of ethanol could feed a child in an undeveloped country for a year. This is one example of the interrelationship between fuel and food. The present invention produces a fuel with little impact on our food supply by preferably using methane based chemicals.
Use of methane also produces lower levels of common pollution emissions. The lower levels of emissions do not require any more stringent or efficient clean up by exhaust devices or e.g., addition of urea to diesel exhaust. For example, methane has a greater ratio of hydrogen to carbon, which produces less carbon dioxide emissions per unit of energy production and less residual materials that must be absorbed by the environment. The world's history of energy supply has moved from carbon based fuels with little or no hydrogen (e.g., wood, peat and coal) to hydrocarbon fuels (e.g., gasoline, diesel and natural gas). Each hydrogen atom has 1/12 the weight of an atom of carbon but delivers twice the energy on combustion to water as compared to an atom of carbon on combustion to carbon dioxide. Coal has an infinite carbon to hydrogen ratio and thus is the poorest choice for a fuel in terms of carbon dioxide production, which is the foundation of global warming concerns. Gasoline and diesel have a 2.0 to 2.5 to one hydrogen to carbon ratio, depending on the particular components of the mixture. The present invention in one preferred mode employs a methanol fuel component that supports a 4 to 1 hydrogen to carbon ratio and is well suited to minimize global warming effects from combustion of fuels.
The most common parameter used to describe an ICE fueled by gasoline is horsepower, whereas it is torque for a diesel engine. One inherent feature of some embodiments of the present invention is to move the ICE towards the energy conversion efficiency and the torque development of a diesel. The torque and the horsepower curves for a diesel engine cross at just over 5,000 rpm. The ratio of air to gasoline at stoichiometric conditions is 14.7 kg of air to one kg of gasoline. Richer mixtures use less air and leaner mixtures use more air. The size of the engine's displacement at any particular speed is the volume of air and is typically not substantially affected by the volume of the fuel other than the degree to which cooling of the fuel on vaporization determines the amount of air that can be put into a hot engine. For example, the use of superchargers is to increase the quantity of air by compressing the air so that more fuel can be combusted in the engine. Because the air is heated during compression, some of the benefit of the super charger is lost. The physics of an engine designed to be fueled by the maximum amount of caged core fuel is sized to process the air flow which is about 5 to 7 kg of air per kg of one embodiment of the present inventive fuel. The volume of air required is determined by the volume of the displacement of the cylinders (at the operating temperature) times the number of revolutions in any given time period.
An engine designed specifically to be fueled by caged core material that has 28.5% V/V methanol solvent requires a significantly lower fuel flow than if it were fueled by gasoline, because the VED of the present inventive fuel exceeds the DED of gasoline. The oxygen content of the present inventive fuel supplements oxygen from air so that a lower air to fuel ratio is required than the air to fuel ratio for gasoline. In addition, the cooling effect of the high heat of vaporization associated with the methanol and core material components allows more air to be added. Because a portion of the VED is associated with the structure of the caged core, there is less waste heat, and air cooling rather than water cooling of the engine may be possible. An engine specifically designed to be fueled by the present inventive fuel at a maximum core material concentration would have approximately 10 times the energy density, about 150 ml of displacement, two cylinders, and a 1 gallon gas tank. Such an engine and vehicle would have a similar range to a gasoline engine automobile, but much improved cost per mile, 400 miles per gallon, $25 a gallon for fuel, and a torque/horsepower profile more like a diesel engine than a gasoline ICE.
For the detonative fuel component of the fuel mixture to ship safely without risk of explosion on agitation, a production package, as in one preferred embodiment, may incorporate a portion of the base stabilizing fuel component (e.g., methanol) to serve as a “containing” or stabilizing shipping adjunct to the detonative fuel component. In the example of a gasoline replacement that uses methanol as the base stabilizing fuel component, the product may comprise in its shipping-stabilized form the following fractions, plus any additive package for corrosion inhibition etc., sufficient for a final product:
The particular amount of methanol or other polar small molecule hydrocarbon necessary to stabilize the detonative fuel component may be determined by adding sufficient methanol (or other) to the detonative fuel component until there is no longer a possibility of reaction occurring for the 2-ethylhexyl nitrate (e.g., upon agitation or impact). The high MPG engine briefly described above may optionally use the above with a small amount (e.g., about 1%, or about 20 to about 40 ml of the additive package for a 1 gallon volume).
More generally, the methanol comprises between about 35% and about 50%, more preferably between about 42% and about 48%, the nitro methane between about 20% and about 35%, more preferably between about 24% and about 30%, the 2-ethylhexyl nitrate between about 10% and about 25%, more preferably between about 14% and about 21%, and the acetone between about 5% and about 15%, more preferably between about 8% and 11%.
Depending on the deflagrative combustive value of the base stabilizing fuel component, the proportion of the detonative fuel component can be modified to provide less or more of the total “bang” to make the combined dynamically stable fuel's performance match that of whatever fuel that an engine is designed for. In a solution in which the base stabilizing fuel component is methanol and comprises about 94% of the solution, it can be determined that the base stabilizing fuel component provides about one-half of the combustive energy in deflagrative form, and the “cage” detonative fuel component provides the other half of the combustive energy in detonative form. Matching the solution desired thus requires calculating the relative energy which is being replaced by the detonative fuel component, until the new combination equals the energy performance of the target fuel to be replaced.
For example, for an internal combustion engine whose base or stabilizing fuel component is gasoline, the amounts above may be mixed with additional methanol to bring the mixture to about 3%, 2% and 1% of nitro methane, 2-ethylhexyl nitrate, and acetone, respectively. Optionally, a small amount (e.g. about 20 to about 40 ml per gallon) of an additive package may also be added. Of course, other fuel compositions at different ratios are possible and several are disclosed herein (see for example,
If the base or stabilizing fuel component is ethanol or an equivalent product then the amounts above should be mixed with additional methanol to bring the mixture to respectively about 1.5%, 1% and 0.5% of nitro methane, 2-ethylhexyl nitrate, and acetone and optionally a small amount of the additive package based on the total volume.
These proportions can be determined by comparing the relative combustive value of the desired base stabilizing fuel component against the amount of energy provided by a known composition already in use.
The combined, stabilized, fuel unit mixture can be envisioned as a dynamically-stable liquid in which each of the detonative component molecules exists in a cage whose bars are made of the molecules of a homogenous solvent with a relatively high dipole moment. For example, acetone has a dipole moment of about 2.88 D. Methanol, ethanol, and other low alcohols (e.g., having four or less carbons) have a dipole moment of about 1.65-1.7 D. This dynamically-stable fuel unit, because of its structure and mixture of deflagrative and detonative reactions when combusted, has more energy than the calorimetric measurements in Kcal or BTU of the individual components because at least a portion of the fuel is detonated in the confined space of an engine. If ignited in the open, the detonative effect rapidly dissipates as the dispersive limit of the supersonic wave disperses the deflagrative aspect beyond the sustainable detonative limit. In other words, the chain reaction can be maintained within the confines of the engine, but would be unlikely to continue in the open.
This cage is formed by the dynamically-moving molecules of a single-component, high-dipole-energy, dense solvent such as methanol (or a mixture of alcohols to adjust the vapor pressure or other parameters for the engine intended). In the simplest case we have a synthetic, non-crude-oil based fuel, including two defined components, a solute (the cage) and a solvent (e.g., methanol, ethanol, butanol, propanol, their isomers, or a combination thereof), and the detonative fuel component. In one embodiment, the fuel mixture may be quite unlike a mixture such as gasoline or diesel, made from thermal distillation of crude oil that principally contains unknown proportions of hydrocarbons with chains and other structures (e.g., aromatics) of 4 to 80 carbons each.
It may also be possible to incorporate further environmentally-favorable aspects by, among others, incorporating into the process additives that are in themselves more environmentally friendly than petroleum-derivation products, such as by creating a product through this process further comprising a detergent additive made by phospholation of waste glycerin from esterification of fatty acids used to make biodiesel from cooking oils or any other fats or oils of animal or plant origin.
III. Fuel Blends that Enhance Mechanical Energy OutputFor any internal combustion engine, once it is manufactured its optimal characteristics are built-in. True, there may be post-production efficiencies reached through improving the engine's environment (e.g., lighter or more aerodynamic vehicle bodies, for example). Yet, this cannot readily be done for engines which are already in use. For this installed base, one route to improvements in efficiency lies in changing the fuel which they burn. For any given design of an internal combustion engine there is an optimal operating combination of temperature and compression pressure. For any given fuel burned in an ICE, there is an optimal combustion efficiency—so much, and no more, of the fuel's heat of combustion will be transformed by the engine into work. The rest of the heat produced is considered to be “waste heat” that will change the temperature of the environment—specifically, the engine's temperature. Conventional wisdom generally teaches that this waste heat should be radiated away.
As described above, the present applicant recognized the importance of reducing the proportions of the additive (and its composite components) that was combined with a base combustive fuel. As noted above, this reduction was by approximately an order of magnitude so that significant energy addition was obtained by using one-tenth or less of the previously-taught “minimal” values of several of the individual subcomponents within the detonative fuel component of the fuel mixture. The increases attained far outpaced those which could be explained by the difference in combustive values between the base combustive fuel component and the additive, which contradicted what the prior art would predict. At least one new factor not subject to linear predictability was operating.
In further testing, a second, and in some ways far more unexpected difference was encountered. This was the importance and value of maintaining the operating temperature of the reaction in the ICE, of keeping the heat of combustion higher than that which would be produced through combustion of the additive's compositional elements alone. This definitely countered the conventional wisdom that a higher heat of operation of the ICE would mean a greater loss of combustion efficiency, since a higher observed temperature indicates a lower thermal efficiency, as it correlates to a lower proportion of the combustive heat energy being translated into work.
Both of these differences were only explainable by recognizing that the detonative component additive's function was such that the loss of combustive thermal energy was more than made up for by the release of explosive or detonative potential energy, but only when the correct proportions of components and optimal operating conditions (e.g., temperature and pressure) were present. In other words, it appears that the so-called “waste energy” was being used by reactions of the detonative additive within the combustion of the base combustive fuel component, which released a greater potential source of energy—the explosive or detonative potential of the detonative fuel component which was being added to the combustive energy.
Testing, both under controlled conditions using a dynamometer and in the real world through on-the-road usage, was conducted to evaluate and better understand the performance of the fuel blend composition(s). Differences between predicted and expected values, as well as some serendipity (e.g., through encountering environmental conditions, in other words the random-within-range temperatures experienced in and on the roads as opposed to the laboratory's controlled conditions, or the varying-within-norms shifts in compression demands from changing slopes, both up and down, in driving across terrain), provided significant data and understanding. Furthermore, variations in the internal combustion engines used (e.g., car, light truck, semi, diesel and gasoline), assisted in better understanding the compositions' effects. Linear extrapolation from any one field (e.g., thermal efficiency of the combustive fuel, explosive potential of subordinate compounds, solvency and miscibility reactions, ICE design) did not predict the results or data, as these extrapolations did not incorporate any of the developing, deeper comprehension of the behavior of the fuel blends and mixture's compositions.
Further experimentation has disclosed not just a composition for a fuel unit that produces superior efficiency to that available through combustive processes alone, but also insight into possible underlying processes giving rise to this result. What has been observed strongly suggests that this is a synergistic reaction—one, that is, where the interaction of two or more substances produces a combined effect greater than the sum of their separate effects.
Thus, one embodiment of the present disclosure comprises a fuel unit to be used in an internal combustion engine that establishes and maintains a stable operating threshold temperature and pressure. This fuel unit comprises a base combustive fuel (e.g., a common motor fuel such as diesel, gasoline, methanol, ethanol, or combinations thereof) to which are added both a core polar material and a stabilizing and enhancing combustive mixture. The core polar material includes a detonative component, and may have a similar composition as the detonative fuel components described above.
The core polar material may itself contain some proportion of a stabilizing yet combustive compound(s), but in any case includes at least one combustible polar protic compound that is not water (e.g., any alcohol having 4 or less carbons), at least two polar aprotic compounds (e.g., acetone and nitro methane), and at least one nitro-alkane compound (e.g., 2-ethylhexyl nitrate). Preferably, the molar ratio of the apolar to polar protic component to nitroalkane is about 13:20:2 in the core polar material (see
The stabilizing and enhancing combustive mixture may contain some proportion of a stabilizing yet combustive compound, at least one nonpolar molecule (e.g., petroleum distillates and benzene derivates) and an explosion-enhancing compound (e.g., a nitro alkane). The stabilizing combustive compound enables separate storage and shipment without hazard of explosion, the nonpolar compound enables the core polar material to be maintained and dispersed in the fuel blend resulting after mixture with the base combustive fuel. The nonpolar component is believed to overcome the base combustive fuel's miscibility limitations to increase the explosive potential when the synthetic fuel is used in an ICE. The fuel blend may be referred hereinafter to a synthetic fuel, although it will be understood that the base combustive fuel does not necessarily have to come from a synthetic source (e.g., it may be diesel or gasoline fuel derived from crude oil processing).
A. Function of the Synthetic Fuel
At the moment of peak compression the ICE initiates deflagrative combustion of the base combustive fuel (which in the preferred embodiment is a petroleum-based fuel). This deflagration is believed to immediately initiate and sustain a solvation reaction between compounds from the stabilizing and enhancing combustive mixture and the core polar material. Together, the deflagrative combustion and solvation reaction enable a detonative or explosive reaction of the nitro-alkane compound, and thus release the explosion potential energy contained within the nitro-alkane compound.
It is believed that the combination of the stabilizing and enhancing combustive mixture and core polar material, as well as the combination of these with the base combustive fuel, for all of the nitro-alkane and polar protic and aprotic compounds present, effect a dynamic molecular “cage” in the resulting solution or mixture that isolates and contains, and thus stabilizes, the potentially explosive nitro-alkane compound while in storage or transport. The proportions and volumes disclosed herein are such that even while the particular molecules forming the “bars” of the cage may swap with their peers through ordinary molecular dispersion and motion, the ongoing chemical reactions will maintain a stable dispersion and structure of the nitro-alkane compound within the synthetic fuel until the synthetic fuel is used in the ICE.
When a unit of synthetic fuel (e.g., base combustive fuel, core polar material, and stabilizing and enhancing combustive mixture) is used in an ICE, it is believed that at least one quarter of the waste heat from combustion of the base combustive fuel and stabilizing yet combustive compound(s) will synergistically supply the heat required for an endothermic solvenation reaction between the polar protic and aprotic compounds. It is believed that initially, the endothermic solvenation reaction may not involve the nitro-alkane compound. This endothermic solvenation may occur via a concerted mechanism (e.g., a mechanism that takes place in one step, with bonds breaking and forming at substantially the same time) at the balanced ratio of heat and pressure within the ICE's optimal operating temperature and power-stroke compression ratio and timing (more heat, less pressure; lower heat, more pressure). This endothermic solvenation then synergistically facilitates detonation of the nitro-alkane compound which responds at that same heat/pressure combination so that a detonation or explosion occurs, thereby releasing the explosive potential energy of the nitro-alkane compound. It is this released explosion potential energy which, because it is significantly greater than the thermal combustive energy available should the nitro-alkane compound just be burned, supplements the mechanical energy created from the thermal processes (see test data of
It is believed that the dipole moment of the polar protic compound (e.g., methanol) holds together the stabilizing “cage” that stabilizes the nitro-alkane compound until the moment of combustion. Further, the polar protic compound is present in stoichiometric ratio with other subordinate components of the synthetic fuel such that they will react with each other (e.g., in pairs) and the core polar material to synergistically engage in solvenation of positively charged species via the negative dipole of the aprotic compounds (e.g., acetone and nitro methane), thereupon enabling a detonative or explosive release of the nitro-alkane from the dynamic molecular cage, creating a pressure wave that progresses at a detonation velocity estimated to be about 18 times that of the combustion wave, or an explosive wave that is about 100 times or more that of the combustion wave. The momentum is transferred to the combustive and explosive reaction products and to the cylinder and piston head, driving the resultant power stroke with some combination of the thermal and explosive energies. Precise timing and interim molecular re-combinations and responses of explosive products are generally not of concern so long as there is a predictable and measurable energy release as there is with the synthetic fuels.
B. Observed Effect of the Synthetic Fuel
The observed effect of this synthetic fuel is a release of more energy within the ICE than can be accounted for through a strict thermal energy accounting of the combustive potential of each of the synthetic fuels component's combustive potential. This is not to be understood as an impossibility, but as probative evidence that a previously unknown factor or reaction is present. In other words, other effects happen with the synthetic fuel than mere combustion.
The energy yield per gram of TNT when exploded is 4,184 joules, which is far greater than the 2,724 joules generated by combustion of TNT. In a complex reaction, as long as the decomposition energy from a first process (e.g. combustion) exceeds the activation energy of a second process (e.g. explosion) and the proximal presence of the components and their condition are maintained, the chain is sustainable (Combustion, Irving Glasser and Richard A. Yetter, 4th Ed., © 2008, Elsevier Press, ISBN 978-0-12-088 573-2, p. 46). While most combustion is heat generating (exothermic), even an explosive reaction that is endothermic is sustainable as long as that heat is available in the environment. This is believed to occur with and in the present invention, wherein heat from combustion enables the subsequent solvation and explosive reactions.
The power stroke of the ICE provides two buffers for the resulting explosion. First, the combustion products of the primary fuel are present at several orders of magnitude greater mass than the products of the explosion. So the kinetic energy of the explosion of the nitro-alkane compound is “cushioned” even as it contributes to an increase in velocity and thus kinetic energy of the combustion products. The second buffering arises from the movement of the piston which in the power downstroke creates a larger volume in the cylinder, thus allowing the detonation or explosion to occur without creating a “knock”, as the direction of the movement of the piston allows the desired expansion of volume (See Glasser, supra, pp. 262, 286-287) (
C. Compounds and Proportions Thereof in the Synthetic Fuel
In exemplary embodiments of the present invention and the alternative embodiments and ranges shown herein, the base combustive fuel may be a synthetic (e.g., ethanol, methanol) or a petroleum-based fuel (e.g. diesel #1, diesel #2, biodiesel, gasoline). Petroleum-based fuels may be preferred in some embodiments, but of course, other base combustive fuels may be used (e.g., alcohols such as methanol or ethanol).
In a preferred embodiment, the core polar material is mixed with an approximately equal volume of the stabilizing and enhancing combustive mixture, before being mixed with the base combustive fuel (
Because less dilute mixtures provide little or no additional benefit in increased efficiency (because insufficient waste environmental heat is available to drive additional secondary reactions), the dilution ratios are preferably within an optimal range of at least about 1:100, for example between 1:100 and 1:2000, and well as those intermediate ratios disclosed above.
In an alternative embodiment, the mixture between the core polar material and the stabilizing and enhancing combustive mixture is about one part core polar material to about three parts stabilizing mixture so that the core polar material comprises about ¼ of the intermediate mixture and the stabilizing and enhancing combustive mixture comprises about ¾ of the intermediate mixture—which again will be mixed at about 1:1000 (or other dilution ratio) with the base combustive fuel.
In a preferred embodiment, the core polar material comprises the following components at approximately the following proportions:
An alternative embodiment is:
with a possible miniscule addition of other-functional additives (e.g., corrosion inhibitor, detergent, and/or antioxidant) similar to the previous embodiment.
The addition of other-functional additives—as in the preferred embodiment, a corrosion inhibitor, detergent, and/or antioxidant—to any embodiments of the core polar material may be in accord with the prior art.
Acetone is an example of an aprotic component that may be included in the core polar material. As described above,
An exemplary stabilizing and enhancing combustive mixture is commercially available under the private mark of Monster Diesel™, which approximately comprises:
An alternative embodiment is:
According to one embodiment, this formulation may be altered within the following approximate proportionate ranges:
In yet a further embodiment of the disclosure, the proportions may be modified and significantly different due to a different choice of the base combustive fuel, the stabilizing yet combustive compound of the core polar material, the stabilizing and enhancing combustive mixture, or any of the above factors. When either (or both) of these combustible sub-parts is (or are) a combustive fuel that is itself polar (e.g., a biodiesel) then the entire synthetic fuel's proportions may change. First, a mixture of the core polar material, stabilizing and enhancing combustive mixture, and base combustive fuel (e.g., biodiesel) is combined in about a 1:1:8 ratio (so the core polar material is about 1/10th of the intermediate product, the stabilizing and enhancing combustive mixture is also about 1/10th of the intermediate product, and the polar biodiesel is about 8/10ths of the intermediate product). Next, this intermediate product is then mixed at about a 1:100 ratio with the base combustive fuel (biodiesel), which will mean that the core polar material and stabilizing mixture portions of the intermediate product are less than 1% (e.g., about 0.1% each) of the resulting blended synthetic fuel. The intermediate product is about 1% of the blended synthetic fuel (but about 80% of this is biodiesel). This intermediate product (“Smart Diesel” in the table below) may be diluted 1:100 with diesel to form a “Treated Diesel” product providing an increase in the MPG of the vehicle by as much as two times. Below is an exemplary Smart Diesel additive that is diluted one part to about 100 parts of diesel or biodiesel (e.g., derived from soy beans).
It is feasible to prepare the core polar material and stabilizing and enhancing combustive mixture as an additive or pair of additives to be blended with a base combustive fuel. However, if the two are separate, then measures must be taken to eliminate the hazard of detonation or explosion of the core polar material during shipment and storage before it is blended in with either or both of the other sub-units.
It would also be possible to incorporate further environmentally-favorable aspects by, among other things, incorporating into the synthetic fuel, or the predecessor additive(s), additional minor (by volume) additives that are in themselves more environmentally friendly than petroleum-derived products. For example, one way would be to create a detergent product for use within the fuel blend that is made by phospholation of waste glycerin from esterification of fatty acids used to make biodiesel from cooking oils or any fats or oils of animal or plant origin.
Often, the additives in the dilute synthetic fuel may not be completely available due to the small quantity of ingredients combined with a large amount of base combustive fuel (e.g., one part each of the core polar material and stabilizing and enhancing mixture to 1,000 parts of base combustive fuel). In particular, the carbon build-up in the fuel system may remove some of the ingredients in the additive. Also one or more of the ingredients maybe preferentially adsorbed by the carbon, changing the ratio of the ingredients and making the remaining concentration of said ingredient limiting in terms of realization of the total performance enhancement. Another factor may be the recirculation of excess fuel from fuel injector delivery systems back to the storage tank. This allows the ingredients to pass more than once to come in contact with any carbon fixed to the elements in the fuel system, which may amplify the aforementioned performance reducing effect.
One solution to this problem is to remove the carbon by chemical means before using the synthetic fuel blend. The commercial product Monster Diesel™ gradually removes the carbon and keeps new carbon deposits from forming. Increased performance in terms of fuel savings have been observed to be progressive with repeat or continued use. However, cleaning may be required in engines where there is a large amount of carbon build up or in systems that provide multiple passes.
On one embodiment, the biodiesel or other base combustive fuel may be blended with the commercial product core polar material and the stabilizing and enhancing combustive mixture (e.g., Monster Diesel™) at a smaller dilution of about 1:100 instead of about 1:1000. Such a “stronger” formulation will aid in making the additives available until any carbon build up is eliminated.
In another embodiment, this stronger formulation may be added directly to the compression cycle of a four cycle engine, rather than being mixed with the fuel. It is during the compression phase that air enters the cylinder and the piston compresses the air.
The air to fuel ratio and other data is presented in the table below. In the present invention, injecting 28/100ths of the concentrated synthetic fuel (1:100 dilution) per minute of the concentrate into the compression cycle to obtain a 17 part per million (W/W) concentration in air and subsequently injecting 0.22 gallons per minute of #2 Diesel is equivalent to adding a 1:1000 dilution (“Cool Fuel” in the table below) of #2 Diesel fed at a rate of 0.22 gpm into the ignition stroke.
Field test data was used to develop the thermal efficiencies shown in the table. The dynamometer testing of the diesel engines as reported in
The threshold point for the reaction to occur is at a certain temperature and at temperatures above that temperature. Engines are typically designed to operate at about 85° C. which is close to the threshold temperature from the standpoint of minimizing wear. Vehicles are usually equipped with liquid-cooling systems (e.g., water) to remove the excess heat. When the weather is hot, the differential temperature between the engine and the ambient temperature are small and the engine runs hotter. The converse is also true.
Use of the synthetic fuel blend cools the engine and is self limiting. The presence of the synthetic fuel concentrate is believed to be necessary but not sufficient to provide the performance enhancement where the waste heat is converted into increased thermal efficiency. It does not appear to matter how much excess synthetic fuel concentrate is present. It is the available waste heat that must work in concert with the concentrate to make the reaction occur and go as far as possible to completion. The challenge is to stop the waste heat from being lost to the environment. This can be done by modulating the flow of coolant to the radiator or restricting the air flow to the radiator or eliminating the radiator all together. It also may be helpful to blanket the engine or close the engine compartment. As the reaction occurs, it cools the engine from the inside, thereby reducing the available waste heat.
Thermal measurement may be the simplest and most reliable method to measure the occurrence of the desired reaction. Measurement in the coolant has the greatest mass and lag time so that the thermal measurement is least responsive to the actual time and continuation of the desired reaction. The head temperature used in the above data is better than the coolant temperature but also suffers from the buffering effect described above. A better measurement may be in the exhaust at a location before any exhaust cleaning equipment. The location now occupied by an oxygen sensor is one preferred location for measuring the temperature. When the desired reaction occurs there is a substantial decrease in the exhaust gas temperature.
The secondary reaction is added in the engine wherein the wasted heat from combustion is used to add a second term to the Carnot efficiency. The secondary reaction actually cools the engine from the inside and it may be helpful to limit or eliminate heat radiation from the engine in order to maintain the reaction as described in conjunction with the working examples. For example, if the exhaust temperature was half the temperature of the combustion temperature (as measured on an absolute scale such as Kelvin or Rankine), then the efficiency for the cycle would be 50%. This is the maximum thermal efficiency, and actual efficiencies of internal combustion engines based on the Otto and Diesel cycles are less than this. Embodiments of the present invention increase the thermal efficiency in two ways. First by cooling the exhaust, it increases the Carnot efficiency, but there is also a second effect because the observed results show that the efficiency falls as the engine continues to be cooled below about 175° F. head temperature rather than continuing to be increased as the temperature difference between combustion and exhaust further increases. This observed phenomenon goes counter to what would be predicted by the Carnot equation.
Observed thermal efficiencies of about 25% are typical in internal combustion engines. This corresponds to about an 1100° F. exhaust temperature. When the secondary reaction is occurring, at 180° F. head temperature the exhaust temperature is about 50° F. to about 100° F. hotter as shown in
The values in
An explosive is a substance that contains a great amount of stored energy that can produce an explosion, a sudden expansion of the material after initiation, usually accompanied by the production of light, heat, sound, and pressure. An explosive charge is a measured quantity of explosive material.
The first explosive widely used in warfare and mining was black powder, invented in 9th century China. This material was sensitive to water and evolved lots of dark smoke. During the 19th century, black powder was replaced by nitroglycerine, nitrocellulose, smokeless powder, dynamite and gelignite (the latter two invented by Alfred Nobel). World War II saw an extensive use of new explosives. In turn, these have largely been replaced by modern explosives such as trinitrotoluene and C-4.
Dynamite is an explosive based on the explosive potential of nitroglycerin, initially using diatomaceous earth or another absorbent substance such as sawdust as an absorbent. Dynamite was the first safely manageable explosive stronger than black powder. Dynamite is considered to be a high explosive, which means it detonates rather than deflagrates. While TNT is used as the standard for gauging explosive power, dynamite actually has more than 60% greater energy density than TNT.
Dynamite is mainly used in the mining, quarrying, and construction industries and has had historical use in warfare, but the unstable nature of nitroglycerin, especially if subjected to freezing, has rendered it obsolete for modern military use.
A blasting cap is a small sensitive primary explosive device generally used to detonate a larger, more powerful and less sensitive secondary explosive such as TNT, dynamite, or plastic explosive. Blasting caps come in a variety of types, some of which include non-electric caps, electric caps, and fuse caps. They are used in commercial mining and excavation. Electric caps are set off by a dynamo device which generates a short burst of current conducted by a long wire to the cap to ensure safety. Traditional fuse caps have a fuse which is lit.
The need for blasting caps arises due to sensitivity issues of an explosive compound. All explosive compounds require a certain amount of energy to detonate. If an explosive is too sensitive, it may go off unexpectedly, so most commercial explosives are formulated to be stable, safe to handle and will not explode if accidentally dropped, mishandled, or exposed to fire. However, such explosives (called secondary explosives) are hard to detonate intentionally. A blasting cap contains an easy-to-ignite explosive that provides the initial activation energy to start a detonation in a more stable explosive. The blasting cap is stored separately and not inserted into the main explosive charge until just before use, keeping the main charge safe.
A. Categories of Explosives
There are different reasons and conditions that make a material explosive. Explosive material is often classified by the type of reaction that takes place which is generally classified as a chemical reaction explosives that contain a large amount of energy stored in chemical bonds or as low or high explosives according to their rates of burn: low explosives burn rapidly (or deflagrate), while high explosives detonate. The follow are specific categorization of explosive reaction:
Decomposition: The chemical decomposition of an explosive may take years, days, hours, or a fraction of a second. The slower processes of decomposition take place in storage and are of interest only from a stability standpoint. Of more interest are the two rapid forms of decomposition, deflagration and detonation.
Deflagration: In deflagration, the decomposition of the explosive material is propagated by a flame front, which moves slowly through the explosive material in contrast to detonation. Deflagration is a characteristic of low explosive material.
Detonation: The term is used to describe an explosive phenomenon whereby the decomposition is propagated by the explosive shockwave traversing the explosive material. The shockwave front is capable of passing through the high explosive material at great speeds, typically thousands of meters per second.
Exotic: In addition to chemical explosives, there exist varieties of more exotic explosive material, and theoretical methods of causing explosions. Examples include nuclear explosives, antimatter, and abruptly heating a substance to a plasma state with a high-intensity laser or electric arc.
B. High and Low Explosives
Explosive materials may be categorized by the speed at which they expand. Materials that detonate (explode faster than the speed of sound) are said to be high explosives and materials that deflagrate are said to be low explosives. Explosives may also be categorized by their sensitivity. Sensitive materials that can be initiated by a relatively small amount of heat or pressure are primary explosives and materials that are relatively insensitive are secondary explosives. Explosives usually have less potential energy than petroleum fuels, but their high rate of energy release produces a great blast pressure. TNT has a detonation velocity of 6,940 m/s compared to 1,680 m/s for the detonation of a pentane-air mixture, and the 0.34-m/s stoichiometric flame speed of gasoline combustion in air.
The properties of the explosive indicate the class into which it falls. In some cases, explosives can be made to fall into either class by the conditions under which they are initiated. In sufficiently large quantities, almost all low explosives can undergo a Deflagration to Detonation Transition (DDT). For convenience, low and high explosives may be differentiated by the shipping and storage classes.
A chemical explosive is a compound or mixture which, upon the application of heat or shock, decomposes or rearranges with extreme rapidity, yielding much gas and heat. Many substances not ordinarily classed as explosives may do one, or even two, of these things. For example, at high temperatures (e.g., greater than about 2000° C.), a mixture of nitrogen and oxygen can be made to react with great rapidity and yield the gaseous product nitric oxide; yet the mixture is not an explosive since it does not evolve heat, but rather absorbs heat.
N2+O2→2NO−43,200 calories (or 180 kJ) per mole of N2
For a chemical to be an explosive, it exhibits all of the following: rapid expansion (i.e., rapid production of gases or rapid heating of surroundings), evolution of heat, rapidity of reaction, and initiation of reaction.
Low explosives are compounds where the rate of decomposition proceeds through the material at less than the speed of sound. The decomposition is propagated by a flame front (deflagration) which travels much more slowly through the explosive material than a shock wave of a high explosive. Under normal conditions, low explosives undergo deflagration at rates that vary from a few centimeters per second to approximately 400 m/s. It is possible for them to deflagrate very quickly, producing an effect similar to a detonation. This can happen under higher pressure or temperature, which usually occurs when ignited in a confined space. A low explosive is usually a mixture of a combustible substance and an oxidant that decomposes rapidly (deflagration); however they burn more slowly than a high explosive which has an extremely fast burn rate. Low explosives are normally employed as propellants. Included in this group are gun powders and light pyrotechnics, such as flares and fireworks.
High explosives are explosive materials that detonate, meaning that the explosive shock front passes though the material at a supersonic speed. High explosives detonate with explosive velocity rates ranging from about 3,000 to about 9,000 m/s. They are normally employed in mining, demolition, and military applications.
C. Basic Characteristics of Explosives
Power: The term power or performance as applied to an explosive refers to its ability to do work. In practice it is defined as the explosive's ability to accomplish what is intended in the way of energy delivery (i.e., fragment projection, air blast, high-velocity jets, underwater shock and bubble energy, etc.). Explosive power or performance is evaluated by a tailored series of tests to assess the material for its intended use. Of the tests listed below, cylinder expansion and air-blast tests are common to most testing programs, and the others support specific applications.
Cylinder expansion test: A standard amount of explosive is loaded into a long hollow cylinder, usually of copper, and detonated at one end. Data is collected concerning the rate of radial expansion of the cylinder and maximum cylinder wall velocity. This also establishes the Gurney energy or 2E.
Cylinder fragmentation: A standard steel cylinder is loaded with explosive and detonated in a sawdust pit. The fragments are collected and the size distribution analyzed.
Detonation pressure (Chapman-Jouguet condition): Detonation pressure data derived from measurements of shock waves transmitted into water by the detonation of cylindrical explosive charges of a standard size.
Determination of critical diameter: This test establishes the minimum physical size a charge of a specific explosive must be to sustain its own detonation wave. The procedure involves the detonation of a series of charges of different diameters until difficulty in detonation wave propagation is observed.
Infinite-diameter detonation velocity: Detonation velocity is dependent on loading density, charge diameter, and grain size. The hydrodynamic theory of detonation used in predicting explosive phenomena does not include diameter of the charge, and therefore a detonation velocity, for an imaginary charge of infinite diameter. This procedure requires a series of charges of the same density and physical structure, but different diameters, to be fired and the resulting detonation velocities extrapolated to predict the detonation velocity of a charge of infinite diameter.
Pressure versus scaled distance: A charge of specific size is detonated and its pressure effects measured at a standard distance. The values obtained are compared with that of TNT.
Impulse versus scaled distance: A charge of specific size is detonated and its impulse (the area under the pressure-time curve) measured versus distance. The results are tabulated and expressed in TNT equivalent.
Relative bubble energy (RBE): A 5 to 50 kg charge is detonated in water and piezoelectric gauges measure peak pressure, time constant, impulse, and energy.
D. Explosive Trains
Another property of explosive materials is where it exists in an explosive train of the device or system. An example of this is a pyrotechnic lead igniting a booster, which causes the main charge to detonate.
Avogadro's law states that equal volumes of all gases under the same conditions of temperature and pressure contain the same number of molecules; that is, the molar volume of one gas is equal to the molar volume of any other gas. The molar volume of any gas at 0° C. and under normal atmospheric pressure is about 22.4 liters. Thus, considering the nitroglycerin reaction,
C3H5(NO3)3→3CO2+2.5H2O+1.5N2+0.25O2
the explosion of one mole of nitroglycerin produces 3 moles of CO2, 2.5 moles of H2O, 1.5 moles of N2, and 0.25 mole of O2, all in the gaseous state. Since a molar volume is the volume of one mole of gas, one mole of nitroglycerin produces 3+2.5+1.5+0.25=7.25 molar volumes of gas; and these molar volumes at 0° C. and atmospheric pressure form an actual volume of 7.25×22.4=162.4 liters of gas.
Based upon this simple beginning, it can be seen that the volume of the products of explosion can be predicted for any quantity of the explosive. Further, by employing Charles' Law for perfect gases, the volume of the products of explosion may also be calculated for any given temperature. This law states that at a constant pressure a perfect gas expands 1/273.15 of its volume at 0° C., for each degree Celsius of rise in temperature.
Explosive strength: The potential of an explosive is the total work that can be performed by the gas resulting from its explosion, when expanded adiabatically from its original volume, until its pressure is reduced to atmospheric pressure and its temperature to 15° C. The potential is therefore the total quantity of heat given off at constant volume when expressed in equivalent work units and is a measure of the strength of the explosive.
E. Incendiaries
Napalm was developed at Harvard University in 1942-43 by a team of chemists led by chemistry professor Louis F. Fieser, who was best known for his research at Harvard University in organic chemistry which led to the synthesis of the hormone cortisone. Napalm was formulated for use in bombs and flame throwers by mixing a powdered aluminum soap of naphthalene with palmitate (a 16-carbon saturated fatty acid)—also known as naphthenic and palmitic acids—hence napalm. Naphthenic acids are corrosives found in crude oil; palmitic acids are fatty acids that occur naturally in coconut oil. On their own, naphthalene and palmitate are relatively harmless substances.
The aluminum soap of naphthenic and palmitic acids turns gasoline into a sticky syrup that projects further and burns more slowly but at a higher temperature. Mixing the aluminum soap powder with gasoline produced a brownish sticky syrup that burned more slowly than raw gasoline, and hence was much more effective at igniting a target. Compared to previous incendiary weapons, napalm spread further, stuck to the target, burned longer, and was safer to its dispenser because it was dropped and detonated far below the airplane. It was also cheap to manufacture.
Modern day “napalm” uses no Napalm (naphthalene or palmitate)—instead using a mixture of polystyrene, gasoline and benzene. After the Korean War a safer but equally effective napalm compound was developed. This new formulation is known as “napalm-B”, super-napalm, or NP2. Polystyrene and benzene are used as a solvent to solidify or gel the gasoline. This modern napalm is a mixture of benzene (21%), gasoline (33%), and polystyrene (46%). Benzene is a normal component of gasoline (about 2%), while the gasoline used in napalm may be the same as is used for fuel in automobiles.
Napalm-B had one great advantage over the original napalm—ignition can be readily controlled. Napalm-B is less flammable than gasoline and therefore less hazardous. The more polystyrene in the mixture, the more difficult it is to ignite. Napalm-B is actually more difficult to ignite than might be expected. A match or even a road flare will not ignite napalm-B. A reliable igniter (e.g., thermite) is used to ignite napalm-B. Some forms of modern napalm even cannot be ignited by a hand grenade.
The Mark 77 bomb (MK-77) is a US 750-lb (340 kg) air-dropped incendiary bomb carrying 110 U.S. gallons of a fuel gel mix, which is the direct successor to napalm.
The U.S. used napalm-B during the Vietnam War. The MK-77 bomb is the primary incendiary weapon currently in use by the United States military. Instead of the gasoline, polystyrene, and benzene mixture used in napalm bombs, the MK-77 uses kerosene-based fuel with a lower concentration of benzene. The Pentagon has claimed that the MK-77 has less impact on the environment than napalm. The mixture reportedly also contains an oxidizing agent as well as white phosphorus, making it more difficult to extinguish once ignited.
The effects of MK-77 bombs are so similar to those of napalm that even many members of the U.S. military continue to refer to them as “napalm” bombs in informal situations. The official designation of Vietnam-era napalm bombs was the Mark 47. Napalm was used during the Persian Gulf War. The Marine Corps dropped all of the approximately 500 MK-77s used in the Gulf War, which were delivered primarily by the AV-8 Harriers from relatively low altitudes. During Operation Desert Storm MK-77s were used to ignite the Iraqis oil-filled fire trenches, which were part of barriers constructed in southern Kuwait.
Use of aerial incendiary bombs against civilian populations, including against military targets in civilian areas, was banned in the 1980 United Nations Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons Protocol III. However the United States reserved the right to use incendiary weapons against military objectives located in concentrations of civilians where it is judged that such use would cause fewer casualties and/or less collateral damage than alternative weapons.
F. Exemplary Inventive Explosive Trains Using the Synthetic Fuel
The above described synthetic fuel blends may be employed in military or civilian explosives. For example, in one embodiment, the heat source for the secondary detonation/explosive material included in the stabilizing and combustive additive comes from detonation or explosion, rather than combustion, of a primary material (e.g., the base combustive fuel). The primary may comprise one or a combination of fuels with optional stabilizers or explosive materials.
In the present embodiments, the traditional role of the primary and the secondary are reversed. The primary is the larger volume of material and the secondary is the smaller. A blasting cap (i.e., the primary) is replaced by a primary combustion in the engine, a bomb, or a stick of dynamite and the secondary is a detonative material that accelerates the large mass of gases from the combustion of the primary material to drive a piston or provide the destructive effect of a bomb or explosive charge. The heat needed to drive the solvation and detonation reactions is supplied by combustion of the primary.
A first, and probably the greatest difference from the prior art encountered, was the importance of reducing the proportions of the secondary explosive material (and its composite components) which was combined with an increase in the quantity of the primary explosive combustive fuel material. This is juxtaposition in quantities. The increases attained far outpaced those which could be explained by the difference in explosive velocity between the primary explosive or combustive fuel and the secondary, which contradicted what the prior art would predict. At least one new factor not subject to linear predictability was operating.
One embodiment thus comprises a hybrid chemical explosive comprising a primary base explosive or combustive fuel treated with a secondary stabilizing and enhancing combustive mixture and combined with a core polar material blended with stabilizers. This combination provides an explosive train that is further combined to form a hybrid explosive that releases and combines explosive/detonative potential energy so as to produce more effective explosive velocity than can be obtained from the detonation/explosion of the primary explosive or combustive fuel alone. Heat energy from the primary base explosive powers the secondary endothermic solvation reaction and detonation or explosion of the core polar material. A hybrid chemical explosive including the described chemical stabilizing “cage” is formed, which protects the secondary explosive material so that it survives the detonation/explosion of the primary chemical fuel and the heat from the primary chemical fuel supports the cage solvation and chemical bonding and then initiates the secondary explosion. The cage serves to stabilize the explosive in a similar manner as the diatomaceous earth in dynamite, while the heat serves as the blasting cap to initiate detonation/explosion of the secondary.
As described above, the core polar material may itself contain some proportion of a stabilizing yet combustive compound, but at least comprises a polar protic compound, at least two polar aprotic compounds, and a nitro-alkane compound. The polar protic compound encapsulates the nitro-alkane, which it itself unstable and potentially explosive. The molar ratios of the polar protic (e.g., methanol), first and second polar aprotic (e.g., acetone and nitro methane, respectively), and nitro-alkane (e.g., 2-ethylhexyl nitrate) in one embodiment are preferably about 20:3:10:2 (see
The stabilizing and enhancing combustive mixture may also contain some proportion of a stabilizing yet combustive compound, at least one nonpolar compound (e.g., petroleum distillates), and an explosion-enhancing compound (a nitro alkane). The nonpolar compound enables separate storage and shipment without hazard of explosion. The stabilizing combustive mixture may also contain polar components (e.g., cresol, xylenol, and other phenols), which aid in maintaining the core polar material in a dispersed state in the synthetic fuel resulting after mixture with the base combustive fuel, as these components overcome the base combustive fuel's miscibility limitations.
It is believed that the combination of the stabilizing and enhancing combustive mixture and the core polar material, as well as the combination of these with the base combustive fuel, for all of the nitro-alkane and polar protic and aprotic compounds present, effect a dynamic molecular “cage” in the resulting solution or mixture that isolates and contains, and thus stabilizes, the potentially explosive nitro-alkane compound while in storage and transport.
When a unit of synthetic fuel (base combustive fuel, core polar material, stabilizing and enhancing combustive mixture) is used as an explosive train, it is believed that at least about one quarter of the waste heat from combustion of the base combustive fuel and stabilizing yet combustive mixture will synergistically supply the heat required for an endothermic solvenation reaction of parts of the synthetic fuel, specifically between the polar protic and aprotic compounds, though without said endothermic solvenation reaction involving initially the nitro-alkane compound. This endothermic solvenation occurs via a concerted mechanism. This endothermic solvenation then synergistically creates for or from the nitro-alkane compound an explosive compound which responds at that same heat/pressure combination so that a detonation or explosion occurs, thereby releasing the explosive potential energy of the nitro-alkane compound.
In an exemplary embodiment of the disclosure, the primary combustive fuel may be a petroleum-based fuel. Examples include, but are not limited to, gasoline, kerosene, benzene, petroleum distillates, fuel oil, jet fuel (e.g., 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5), or combinations thereof.
As described previously with respect to the synthetic fuels, the core polar material may be mixed with an approximately equal amount of the stabilizing and enhancing combustive mixture before being mixed with the base combustive fuel. The mixture ratio between the combined intermediate and the base combustive fuel may be at least as dilute as about 1:100 (e.g., 1:250, 1:500 or 1:1000). In an alternative embodiment, the mixture between the core polar material and the stabilizing and enhancing combustive mixture is one part to three parts, which again may be diluted with at least about 100 parts of the base combustive fuel. In one embodiment, the dilution may be between about 100 and about 1000 parts of base combustive fuel per one part core polar material and per one part stabilizing and enhancing combustive mixture. Depending on the particular use, other dilution ratios may range between about 250 and about 1000, between about 250 and about 2000, or over 2000.
The core polar material may comprise the same formulations as described above with respect to the synthetic fuel embodiments. The stabilizing and enhancing combustive mixture may similarly comprise the same formulations as described above with respect to the synthetic fuel described in conjunction with the synthetic fuel embodiments (e.g., it may comprise Monster Diesel™).
It may be feasible to prepare the core polar material and stabilizing and enhancing combustive mixture as an additive or pair of additives to be blended with a primary explosive or combustive fuel. However, if the two are separate then measures should be taken to eliminate the hazard of detonation or explosion of the core polar material during shipment and storage before it is blended in with either or both of the other sub-units.
One contemplated military application of the present invention is to increase the explosive energy and thus a delivery payload by incorporating the present invention into a production incendiary bomb such as the MX-77.
The heat value equivalent in kg of diesel of 8,201 MJ is 182 gallons (8,201 MJ/45 MJ/kg). Based on dynamometer testing, as shown in
The explosive equivalent of a single MK-77 bomb is 1.7 Tons of TNT (8,201 MJ/4.6 MJ/Kg of TNT). The explosive equivalent of the MK-77 bomb can be increased to 10 tons of TNT with the addition of the 46.5 fluid ounces of secondary detonation/explosive material of one part of the stabilizing and combustive additive. ExCelerator™ is one example of one such material.
In the following table the above mixture is referenced at Napalm and EXCelerator™. All numbers are estimates based on the assumption that Napalm has a velocity of the explosive wave equal to that of pentane in air. The present invention produces a hybrid of fuel and explosives that results in a new class of explosives with greater velocity than TNT and rivals the velocity of high explosives.
Dynamite is usually sold in the form of a stick about 20 centimeters (roughly 8 inches) long and about 2.5 centimeters (1 inch) in diameter, with a weight of about ¼ kg (roughly ½ lb). Other sizes also exist. Dynamite is considered a high explosive, which means it detonates rather than deflagrates. While TNT is used as the standard for gauging explosive power, dynamite actually has more than 60% greater energy density than TNT.
The explosive energy in a stick of dynamite is 2.1 MJ and originally contained 1 part diatomaceous earth and three parts nitroglycerine. The same explosive equivalent of the stick of dynamite can be obtained when 6 oz of Napalm-B is mixed with 0.036 oz secondary detonation/explosive material and 0.036 oz. of the stabilizing and combustive additive (e.g., available as ExCelerator™).
One skilled in the art of fuel additives will be capable of taking the information provided and producing the fuel additives and mixtures of the present invention. Furthermore, one of skill in the art will recognize extension of the described embodiments, for example by substituting other materials in the manufacture to obtain other final products that differ from the described embodiments of the fuel additives and mixtures that fall within the teachings of the present disclosure.
Unless context clearly dictates otherwise, disclosed mixtures are in volume comparison. Volumes are for under standard conditions, that is, assuming a temperature of materials and environment of about 25° C./68° F. and a pressure of about 1 standard atmosphere (or 1,013,250 dynes per square centimeter, or 101,325 Pa., or 14.696 lbs/sq. in).
The inventor's two earlier filed U.S. patent applications, U.S. patent application Ser. No. 12/658,062, filed Feb. 1, 2010, and entitled “MANUFACTURE OF SYNTHETIC FUELS THAT ENHANCE MECHANICAL ENERGY OUTPUT FROM ENGINES” and U.S. patent application Ser. No. 12/802,093, filed May 28, 2010, and entitled “SYNERGISTICALLY-REACTIVE SYNTHETIC FUEL THAT ENHANCES MECHANICAL ENERGY OUTPUT FROM INTERNAL COMBUSTION ENGINES”, are each herein incorporated by reference in their entirety.
As used in this specification and the appended claims, the singular forms “a,” “an” and “the” include plural referents unless the context clearly dictates otherwise.
It will also be appreciated that the present claimed invention may be embodied in other specific forms without departing from its spirit or essential characteristics.
The described embodiments are to be considered in all respects only as illustrative, not restrictive. The scope of the invention is, therefore, indicated by the appended claims rather than by the foregoing description. All changes that come within the meaning and range of equivalency of the claims are to be embraced within their scope.
Claims
1. A process for producing a fuel unit for use in an internal combustion engine, the process comprising:
- selecting a petroleum-based fuel to be replaced and identifying its combustive, performance, and energy values;
- selecting a polar small-molecule hydrocarbon having four or less carbons and a known deflagrative combustion value as a stabilizing fuel component; and
- comparing the known deflagrative combustion value of the stabilizing fuel component against the energy value of the petroleum-based fuel to be replaced;
- calculating the relative energy deficiency of the stabilizing fuel component against the petroleum-based fuel to be replaced; and
- forming the fuel unit by combining that amount of a detonative fuel component which will provide an energy density sufficient to substantially equal the combustive, performance, and energy values of the petroleum-based fuel to be replaced.
2. A process as in claim 1, wherein the detonative fuel component is combined with an amount of the selected stabilizing fuel component so that the detonative fuel component is provided in a shipping-stabilized form.
3. A process as in claim 2, wherein the petroleum-based fuel to be replaced is gasoline, wherein the stabilizing fuel component is methanol, and the detonative fuel component comprises nitro methane, 2-ethylhexyl nitrate, and acetone, the nitro methane, 2-ethylhyexyl nitrate, and acetone being present within the detonative fuel component at a volumetric ratio between about 2.5 to about 3 parts nitro methane per part acetone, and about 1.5 to about 2 parts 2-ethylhexyl nitrate per part acetone.
4. A process as in claim 2, wherein the stabilizing fuel component is methanol and comprises at least about 28.5% by volume of the fuel unit.
5. A process as in claim 2, wherein the shipping-stabilized form of the detonative fuel component comprises on a molar basis, about 20 moles of methanol, about 10 moles of nitro methane, about 2 moles of 2-ethylhexyl nitrate, and about 3 moles of acetone.
6. (canceled)
7. (canceled)
8. (canceled)
9. A fuel additive to be combined with a base combustive fuel for use in an internal combustion engine, the fuel additive comprising:
- a core polar material comprising: a polar protic compound at least two polar aprotic compounds; and a nitro-alkane compound; and
- a stabilizing and enhancing combustive mixture comprising: a nonpolar compound; and an explosion-enhancing compound;
- wherein at least one part of the core polar material and one part of the stabilizing and enhancing combustive mixture can be added to at least about 10 parts of a base combustive fuel to form a synthetic fuel blend.
10. A fuel additive as in claim 0, wherein the core polar material approximately comprises by volume: Methanol 42-48%; Nitromethane 24-30%; 2 Ethylhexyl Nitrate 14-21%; Acetone 8-11%.
11. A fuel additive as in claim 0, wherein the stabilizing and enhancing combustive mixture approximately comprises by volume: % Range by Volume 2-Ethylhexyl Nitrate <80 Petroleum Distillates 5-30 1,2,4-Trimethyl-benezene 1-25 Long Chain Alkyl Amide 1-25 Light Petroleum Distillates m-Cresol 1-25 Xylenol 1-25 p-Cresol 0.5-24 Vinyl Acetate 0.5-24 Ethyl Phenol 0.3-20
12. A synthetic fuel for use in an internal combustion engine, the fuel comprising:
- a core polar material comprising: a polar protic compound; at least two polar aprotic compounds; and a nitro-alkane compound; and
- a stabilizing and enhancing combustive mixture comprising: a nonpolar compound; and an explosion-enhancing compound; and
- a base combustive fuel;
- wherein at least one part each of the core polar material and stabilizing enhancing combustive mixture is added to at least about 10 parts of the base combustive fuel.
13. A synthetic fuel as in claim 12, wherein the base combustive fuel is a petroleum-based fuel.
14. A synthetic fuel as in claim 0, wherein one part each of the core polar material and stabilizing combustive mixture is added to at least about 1000 parts of the base combustive fuel.
15. A synthetic fuel as in claim 12, wherein one part each of the core polar material and stabilizing combustive mixture is added to at least about 2000 parts of the base combustive fuel.
16. A synthetic fuel as in claim 12, wherein one part each of the core polar material and stabilizing combustive mixture is added to at between about 500 and about 1000 parts of the base combustive fuel.
17. A synthetic fuel as in claim 12, wherein about one part of the core polar material and about 3 parts of the stabilizing combustive mixture are added to between about 500 and about 2000 parts of the base combustive fuel.
18. A synthetic fuel as in claim 12, wherein the base combustive fuel is a polar biodiesel, and the core polar material, stabilizing enhancing combustive mixture, and a portion of the biodiesel are combined at about a 1:1:8 ratio to form an intermediate mixture and the intermediate mixture is then combined with at least about 100 parts of the biodiesel.
19. A synthetic fuel as in claim 0, wherein one part each of the core polar material and stabilizing combustive mixture is added to at least about 100 parts of the base combustive fuel.
20. A synthetic fuel as in claim 12, wherein the two polar aprotic compounds comprise acetone and nitro methane.
21. A synthetic fuel as in claim 12, wherein the polar protic compound comprises methanol.
22. (canceled)
23. A synthetic fuel as in claim 12, wherein the core polar material approximately comprises by volume: Methanol 42-48%; Nitromethane 24-30%; 2 Ethylhexyl Nitrate 14-21%; Acetone 8-11%.
24. A synthetic fuel as in claim 12, wherein the core polar material approximately comprises by volume: % Range by Volume 2-Ethylhexyl Nitrate <80 Petroleum Distillates 5-30 1,2,4-Trimethyl-benezene 1-25 Long Chain Alkyl Amide 1-25 Light Petroleum Distillates m-Cresol 1-25 Xylenol 1-25 p-Cresol 0.5-24 Vinyl Acetate 0.5-24 Ethyl Phenol 0.3-20
25-33. (canceled)
Type: Application
Filed: Feb 1, 2011
Publication Date: Nov 29, 2012
Inventor: Matthew M. Zuckerman (Mountain View, CA)
Application Number: 13/576,262
International Classification: C10L 1/23 (20060101);
