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ionizing intake air for better performance

 Using a corona discharge device to ionize intake air for an engine
 
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There is a company manufacturing a corona discharge device that sits inside exhaust pipe before the Catalytic converter. (link: http://www.litexcorp.com/cdd/index.htm) This device is supposed to assist the Cat. in cleaning up tailpipe emmissions and helps the Cat. to last longer, or alternatively, car companies could use this to reduce the size of the Cat. for equivalent emmissions. Supposedly this device only consumes about 25 W of electric power.

Has anybody ever tried to ionize the intake air for a combustion engine? It seems to me that feeding the engine ionized air (OZONE or O3-) would make for more complete combustion since it is a better oxidixer than plain old O2. Any Ideas on this?

—bundy75, Sep 12 2003

thar she is http://www.litexcorp.com/cdd/index.htm
here you go [dickity, Oct 04 2004]

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       [bundy75] there's a provision for adding URLs/links to the idea down just below the body text of your idea. Would you move your link out of the idea to there?   

       Interesting idea. I haven't any notion whether or not it would work. Wonder if it would require induction system adjustments for things like the o2 sensor, etc.
—bristolz, Sep 12 2003
   

       Isn't ozone much more corrosive than O2? Could that lead to rust problems in the engine?   

       It might be worth a try if no one has tried it yet.
—scad mientist, Sep 15 2003
   

       Sludge is bad?
—DeathNinja, Sep 15 2003
   

       The question: does ozonated air provide better combustion. This should be testable with a teslacoil or other ozone generator in a closed transparent space, and a match. The match should burn brighter in the presence of ozone enriched air.   

       Is it me or are there a lot of ozone ideas lately? And have I mentioned liquid ozone is bright blue?
—bungston, Sep 16 2003
   

       say O3 burns hotter than 02. it would take x amount of energy from the cars elcrical system to make z amount of o3. the energy when the o3 bonds break would be less than the energy to make the bond because the electrolosis process is not 100% efficient. there fore it would be a power loss.
—mini1, Oct 13 2003
   

       If this is on the intake you will not be getting anymore oxegen ( 3 "O2"s go in - 2 "O2"s come out ) , and the oxegen has to break down to burn ( that part is speculation ) so it would not increase preformence. However, ionizing the air might make the gasoline particles ( when injecting ) smaller.
—my-nep, Oct 16 2003
   

       I am just finishing a prototype generator and will be installing it this week, I do have concerns regarding combustion temps...
—calex, Oct 19 2003
   

       great. let's put another pollutnat manufacturing device in our cars so they can be more dangerus. <p> *sorry* <p> O3 is pretty bad stuff to us unless they are way up there. the risk of leaking O3 outweighs what efficiency it might provide.
—synergy~, Oct 19 2003
   

       The Idea is to have ions not O3, the test unit will have a FTP75, USO6, and SCO3
—calex, Nov 27 2003
   

       If you can create fusion with 25 watts, let me know how, so i can steal it from you and get the nobel peace prize.
—sorge, May 12 2004
   

       Interesting notion, though measuring its effectiveness could be difficult. Use in an engine with an electronci control system would be complicated by the fact that such control systems aren't "expecting" ozone or ionized air on the input and might not compensate optimally. I don't know any way to tell whether the optimal performance with ozonated or ionized air was any better than the optimal performance with 'ordinary' air.   

       To be sure, ozonating or ionizing air takes energy, but the reduction in energy required to split the O2 molecules during combustion may make up for that (in pure energy terms, it wouldn't, but it may allow the engine to get more effective use out of the energy it uses).
—supercat, May 12 2004
   

       Logically *if* combustion temperatures were higher it could provide a more efficient engine. The extra energy wouldn't be the energy released from breaking down ozone, it would be from the higher thermodynamic efficiency caused by a larger temperature difference between the "hot side" and "cold side" of the theoretical process. That said, a fair amount of time has been spent the last while on lean mix motors that actually lower the combustion temperature because at a certain temperature you get a sudden jump in NOx production, which is bad news, and supposedly if it's done right the benefits of not having a cat can make up for the losses cause by this type of motor. This is stuff from my college classes so I don't have any links handy, sorry. But basically catalytic converters are worse for large motors, and lowering the temperature is worse for small motors.
—brewer, May 13 2004
   

       >>If you can create fusion with 25 watts, let me know how, so i can steal it from you and get the nobel peace prize<<   

       peace prize for science?? must be some drunk judges.   

       http://www.nobel.se/
—thejini, May 14 2004
   

       Ionization and the creation of ozone are quite different processes. There is the mistaken idea that ozone in the lower atmosphere is harmful due to a misunderstanding of what it actually is. As has been stated already, ozone is nothing more than activated oxygen created by the addition of an O atom to the O2 molecule. This is a very weak bond and the ozone is consumed, reverted back into O2 and CO2 during the process of oxidation of pollutants. Nature, through sunlight and thunderstorms, has been providing clean air through the action of ozone since the dawn of time. Whether the addition of ozone would improve the efficiency of an internal combustion engine, I do not know, but I will submit the question to the engineering department of my company. Cleaning up air pollution is our business.
—Starbuck, May 15 2004
   

       Calex---what happened with your device? Would like to see the results. Is there any way to email other contributors? Even if there are positive effects, ozone would probably be ineffective since concentration would be in ppm. Negative ions, however, could have a much larger impact since they would tend to be repelled by the engine components and might provide a concentrating force within the cylinder. Whether the concentration and dynamics are favorable might be indicated by Calex's experiments.
—pidmojim, Jul 02 2004
   

       [Starbuck], you might want to read up on the health problems caused by breathing ozone (03) before you defend your position too much ;)   

       How does 03 clean the air?   

       I have a few HV generators...I'll try to get some results on a burning match this next monday.
—nomel, Jul 03 2004
   

       Hey, I just thought up your idea of an Ozone intake independently. Your idea could be used to lower the NOx emmisions as you could use it to sepperate out the oxygen from the N and vent the N back outside. If the N's were taken out of the combustion equasion your Oxygen richness would go up suggnificantly. Then, the combustion efficiency and completion would deffinately go up. The heat of combustion would be too high for gaskets on piston engines, however! Look at he mono propellent H2O2 to get an idea. Why are we still using piston engines in our vehicles anyway? Look into advanced ceramics and turbine engines! Tesla bladless disk turbines are a possibility. This is an interesting project... If you guys are still working on it please send me an e-mail... I would love to work on it with you... fity0401@stcloudstate.edu
—fity, Jan 30 2005
   


 

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