This is kind of long but should be of interest to all. Couldn't help but
LOL at the last sentence.
Chemist claims fuel
additive cuts pollution,
boosts mileage
By August Gribbin
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
A former American University chemist yesterday
reported
that he and a Virginia entrepreneur had created a
safe,
pollution-reducing and mileage-boosting replacement
for harmful gasoline additives.
In a well-received paper presented at the annual
American Chemical Society meeting that ended here
yesterday, Paul Waters explained he had created a
polymer additive for gasoline called polyisobutylene.
He said that controlled company tests using more
than 50 different automobiles show the new agent
reduces
harmful auto emissions by 70 percent while increasing
engine
power 10 percent and gas mileage at least 20 percent.
The additive is being tested by officials in
California,
Maryland and Wisconsin, and also in China, Japan and
Ireland.
"We've introduced the first antiknock [or
combustion-enhancing] agent that is not a poison or
environmental disaster," Mr. Waters said in an
interview.
"What Professor Waters has, on the face of it,
is a quite
remarkable discovery," said Graham Swift, a
Philadelphia-based polymer scientist and industrial
consultant.
He adds, "I heard Professor Waters' presentation
and
conferred with respected colleagues. The consensus is
that
his science is good. He doesn't leave much room for
doubt
? a very good scientific discovery."
Put most simply, Mr. Waters' discovery is a
method of
changing the physical properties of gasoline rather
than simply
adding oxygen to it as all other additives do.
Introducing as little as two ounces of the
polyisobutylene
to a tank of gas forces slower-burning gasoline
molecules to
move closer to the faster-burning ones. That allows
the fuel to
burn more evenly at reduced temperatures. When that
happens,
fewer unwanted emissions are produced.
The altered gasoline reportedly cannot harm
engines and
can be used universally ? in lawn mowers and in big
trucks'
diesels, too.
Mr. Waters is an emeritus professor at American
University.
For years, he has been collaborating with General
Technology
Applications, a small, 22-year-old Gainesville, Va.,
company
that was formed to commercialize the military's
technological
innovations.
Company president Jerry Trippe said Mr. Waters
"stumbled" on the technology for producing the
additive while
he and company specialists were trying to modify jet
fuels so
they wouldn't explode in crashes.
Both Mr. Trippe and Mr. Waters are convinced
their
discovery can bring an end to the long and
increasingly
intense search for a new way to reduce smog-producing
and
dangerous hydrocarbon emissions from
internal-combustion
engines.
Since 1995, the Environmental Protection Agency
has
required the use of gasolines reformulated with
pollution-reducing
additives in at least 17 states reporting severe smog.
That
includes most of the Northeast.
But in the last couple of years, the quest for a
better
additive has gained crucial importance because the
most
common additive, MTBE (or methyl tertiary butyl ether)
has
been found to contaminate ground water and to create
serious health risks.
A National Academy of Sciences study also found
last
year that MTBE and its common substitute ethanol do
little to reduce smog and are likely to worsen
pollution.
California and five other states thus have banned the
additive
and Maine no longer requires its use.
Mr. Trippe said there is no question that
polyisobutylene
can fill the gap left by MTBE.
"The trick is for a little company to arrange and
pay for all
the testing needed to convince the petroleum
industry," he
said. "Ours is an unusual approach. The experts aren't
used
to confronting the problem the way we have."
Mr. Waters is less diplomatic.
"It's difficult when you have something brand new
because
the regulators tend not to understand any technology
that
wasn't invented by some German before 1900," he said.
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