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Alternative fuel idea: Very simple: Additional compressed oxygen tank

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adlep

adlep

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The idea is to supply car's engine in an enriched oxygen level mixture for about 20-40 minute drive (enough for a typical commute to work).
The system would be tuned up for efficiency and not performance.

In a sense it could work as a NO2 nitrous system - but de-tuned for efficiency - so that it is easy on the engine and gasoline.
The pure oxygen could be also recharged every day by a small oxygen compressor in the garage...

?
What do you think...
 
O2 supports combustion but is not combustible itself. It is not a fuel. The only way for an engine to cope with an increased amount of O2 is to inject more gasoline, not less. Your idea would increase fuel consumption. It's not physically possible to just "tune it for efficiency, not performance", the physical laws involved just don't work that way.

From the very link you use in your post:

So if the car used pure oxygen, it would be inhaling 100 percent oxygen instead of 21 percent oxygen, or about five times more oxygen. This would mean that it could burn about five times more fuel.
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ZV
 
Also, why bother adding a large, heavy copmpressed gas tank, additional lines, valves etc. when you could just use nitromethanol and get an oxygen enriched fuel mixture.
It won't help increase fuel efficiency but it would increase power.
 
Originally posted by: Skoorb
Originally posted by: BUTCH1
Originally posted by: Howard
No practical amount of pure oxygen is safe.
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I see people all the time out with oxygen tanks, looks safe enough to me..
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They are all terrorists; those things are as dangerous as any bomb.
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Uh, no, oxygen itself does NOT BURN, it ENHANCES an existing combustion...geez..
 
Originally posted by: Zenmervolt
O2 supports combustion but is not combustible itself. It is not a fuel. The only way for an engine to cope with an increased amount of O2 is to inject more gasoline, not less. Your idea would increase fuel consumption. It's not physically possible to just "tune it for efficiency, not performance", the physical laws involved just don't work that way.

From the very link you use in your post:

So if the car used pure oxygen, it would be inhaling 100 percent oxygen instead of 21 percent oxygen, or about five times more oxygen. This would mean that it could burn about five times more fuel.
Click to expand...

ZV
Click to expand...

Burn five times more fuel... so would that mean more power?
 
Originally posted by: MotF Bane
Originally posted by: Zenmervolt
O2 supports combustion but is not combustible itself. It is not a fuel. The only way for an engine to cope with an increased amount of O2 is to inject more gasoline, not less. Your idea would increase fuel consumption. It's not physically possible to just "tune it for efficiency, not performance", the physical laws involved just don't work that way.

From the very link you use in your post:

So if the car used pure oxygen, it would be inhaling 100 percent oxygen instead of 21 percent oxygen, or about five times more oxygen. This would mean that it could burn about five times more fuel.
Click to expand...

ZV
Click to expand...

Burn five times more fuel... so would that mean more power?
Click to expand...

It doesn't mean it's efficient.
 
Onboard O2 tanks would let you close off your intake and produce fuel mixtures at whatever ratio you wanted, enabling you to use extremely lean air-to-fuel ratios without risking NOx production. You wouldn't have all those useless molecules like N2 or CO2 entering the intake.

Unfortunately it would increase the weight of the car, and you'd have two fuel mixture components to refill all the time (gasoline and oxygen).
 
They say Boron is an interesting alternative fuel. It's like gravel; completely inert, yet you can use it as a crazy fuel source in a car.
 
Originally posted by: DrMrLordX
Onboard O2 tanks would let you close off your intake and produce fuel mixtures at whatever ratio you wanted, enabling you to use extremely lean air-to-fuel ratios without risking NOx production. You wouldn't have all those useless molecules like N2 or CO2 entering the intake.

Unfortunately it would increase the weight of the car, and you'd have two fuel mixture components to refill all the time (gasoline and oxygen).
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If pure 02 was beneficial, wouldn't we see oxygen kits instead of nitrous kits?

Well it turns out pure N2 isn't so useless., as it pull heat away. Without it, EGTs would go through the roof and preignition would be prevalent.
 
Originally posted by: ehhhh

Well it turns out pure N2 isn't so useless., as it pull heat away. Without it, EGTs would go through the roof and preignition would be prevalent.
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Details details. N2 still allows NOx to form which makes the EPA chop your head off with a battleaxe. Well, not really. They just force you to use a catalytic converter.

I'm sure the problems associated with nitrogen-free fuel mixtures could be engineered around somehow, not that anyone's going to block off their intake and run on pure O2 anytime soon.

I was always under the impression that nitrous was so popular because it was more stable/safer than O2.
 
Originally posted by: JJ650
Originally posted by: MotF Bane
Burn five times more fuel... so would that mean more power?
Click to expand...

It doesn't mean it's efficient.
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Actually, it would not decrease efficiency by significant amounts, so burning 5 times the fuel would mean 5 times the power. (Roughly, increased power means increased cylinder pressure which puts an increased load on bearings and does slightly increase friction, but that starts to get really complicated so it's reasonable to simply say 5 times the power for quick "back of the envelope" calculations.)

ZV
 
Originally posted by: DrMrLordX
I was always under the impression that nitrous was so popular because it was more stable/safer than O2.
Click to expand...

That's certainly one of it's benefits, but the primary reason NO2 is more popular in the performance crowd is because it's far cheaper than O2.
 
Originally posted by: jRaskell
Originally posted by: DrMrLordX
I was always under the impression that nitrous was so popular because it was more stable/safer than O2.
Click to expand...

That's certainly one of it's benefits, but the primary reason NO2 is more popular in the performance crowd is because it's far cheaper than O2.
Click to expand...

Pure oxygen would melt engine components and cause detonation. It's not possible to safely inject pure oxygen into an internal combustion engine without superheating and melting things.

The chemical decomposition of nitrous in the combustion chamber releases the oxygen as combustion is occurring and immediately consuming that oxygen, as well as providing evaporative cooling in the intake. The nitrous is in N02 form all the way up until the heat of combustion breaks it down (the cooling is simply from the liquid to gas evaporation as it's injected into the intake). There is never any free O2 just lying around; it's released and consumed immediately. I don't remember the exact chemistry behind it, but the nitrogen left over creates N2 and has a significant role in "buffering" things and allowing oxygen to be delivered without melting pistons.

Think of it like the gel capsules on a pill, a necessary delivery vehicle. Pure oxygen is a no no.
 
I'm not sure about the OP's idea...but something similar is being worked on by Swiss engineers...I was reading a story not to long ago about it...I'll try to dig it up later.

The idea is to use engine breaking to compress air in a tank which can then be used whenever more power is needed. Same concept as a turbo...but instead of the turbo running all the time...this could only be used when absolutely needed. From what I read, the idea was that this could allow small cars to be given 1 or 2 cylinder engines that produce adequate power for the task at hand because of this unique form of "turbo charging". The article mentioned the engineers thought this could easily create usable 100mpg cars.

I'll dig the article up as soon as I get home.
 
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