Technical Field of the Invention

The present invention relates to a fuel saving device for efficient burning of a hydrocarbon fuel in a combustion chamber. More particularly, the invention pertains to a fuel saving device comprising a fuel passageway having a thin layer coating comprising a mixture of nanoparticles for conditioning and catalyzing the fuel before entering into the combustion chamber. More particularly, the invention relates to a fuel saving device as mentioned above comprising a coating of a mix of supermagnetic nanoparticles for cracking the fuel molecules and a supercapacitor in electrical contact with the nanoparticles for ionizing the fuel.

Background of the Invention

Fluid catalytic cracking (FCC) is one of the most important conversion processes used in petroleum refineries. In the FCC process, the feedstock is heated to a high temperature and moderate pressure, and brought into contact with a hot, powdered catalyst. Fluid catalytic cracking (FCC), is primarily used in producing additional gasoline in the refining process which gives more heating value and more energy.

On the other hand, molecules in gaseous or liquid state carry postive and negative electric charges. These molecules get attracted to each other and form 'clusters’. In such condition, when the fuel is mixed with air, all the molecules of the fuel may not combine with the oxygen molecules in the air, in order to burn and give out heat energy. Some of the fuel molecules burn and the rest escape in the atmosphere as un-burnt gases. This leads to poor fuel efficiency and pollution of the atmosphere. In the presence of an ionization process, the fuel molecules are oriented in a particular direction and the molecular clusters are opened out This is called ‘ionization’. Ionized fuel molecules combine with oxygen molecules in the air quickly and burn effectively. This more effective burning increases the flame temperature and higher heat energy, leading to fuel saving and reduction of air pollution.

In state of the art technologies, devices comprising nanoparticles with catalytic properties have been used for efficient burning of hydrocarbon fuels. However, catalytic devices suffer from various problems including insufficient ionization of hydrocarbons and also inferior physical adherence to the fuel passageways which in turn causes erosion of the catalytic coating and flushing it out of the fuel passageways with the effect of flowing fluids.

Another approach is making use of magnetizing devices as disclosed, for instance, in US-A- 3830621, US-A-4188296, US-A-4461262, US-A-4572145, US-A-5331807 and US-A-5664546 whereby a magnet is placed in the device, and the south pole of the same is brought in close proximity with a fuel line so that the fuel molecules are reorganized for improving the burning efficiency. The magnetizing material is placed onto various components of a combustion system with different arrangements, however, the effect of these systems is mostly quite limited because the magnetic field as such is mostly insufficient for ionization and conditioning of the fuel molecules in a closed conduit system. It is known that density of an electrical field imposed to a flowing liquid fuel is affected by many parameters such as the power of the magnetizer, its distance to the fuel and even the material and the thickness of the housing or conduit of the fuel.

Having these considerations in hand, the present invention provides a fuel saving device having fuel passageway with a coating comprising a mix of nanocatalysts for efficient contact with the fuel. This catalyzes the fuel by more ionization and breakes down the fuel molecules to create more surfaces exposed to the combustion processes and increases the fuel efficiency in the combustion room.

Brief Description of the Invention

The present invention provides a fuel saving device for efficient burning of fluid hydrocarbon fuel in a combustion chamber, having a fuel passageway adapted for connection to a fuel supply line of the combustion chamber. The device comprises; a coating on an inner surface of said fluid passageway such that the coating gets into contact with the fuel; said coating comprisingAu-FesCH nanoparticles with particle size ranging from 1 to 100 nm, and a supercapacitor in electrical contact with said coating.

The fuel saving device of the invention can be in the form of a shell or fuel filter placed on a fuel conduit of the combustion chamber. The shell formed device may comprise at least one replaceable tablet occupying cross section of the fuel passageway whereby the tablet comprises the coating with the nanoparticles. These tablets may comprise a silica or glass based surface on which the coating is applied. Preferably, the coating has a composition further comprising at least one dispersing polymer. Said dispersing polymer may comprise poly-L-lysine (PLL) or poly-D-lysine (PDL) polymer. The coating may further comprise at least one thermo-resisting paint.

Preferably, the nanoparticles have particle sizes ranging from 20 nm to 60 nm. The supercapacitor may have a capacitance value ranging from 0.1 to 500 Farads. Also overall weight of the Au-Fe ₃ O ₄ nanoparticles in the coating composition can be in the range of 50 mg to 300 mg.

In another aspect, the present invention pertains to use of the fuel saving device mentioned above for efficient burning of a hydrocarbon fuel in a vehicle having an internal combustion engine.

In a further aspect, the present invention is directed to a novel method for the preparation of a fuel saving device for efficient burning of a fluid hydrocarbon fuel in a combustion chamber comprising the steps of; providing a fuel passageway on the device adapted for connection to a fuel supply line of the combustion chamber, coating an inner surface of said fuel passageway such that the coating gets into contact with the fuel; said coating comprising Au-Fe ₃ O ₄ nanoparticles with particle size ranging from 1 to 100 nm, and incorporating a supercapacitor to the device in electrical contact with said coating.

Said method may further comprise the step of dispersing Au-Fe ₃ O ₄ nanoparticles in a solvent in preparation of the coating. An additional step of coating Au-Fe ₃ O ₄ nanoparticles with a dispersing polymer is also preferred.

Detailed Description of the Invention

The present invention mainly aims at providing a fast assistant, which will accelerate ignition process, improve hydrocarbon combustion and prevent detonation and burning coke, so that an engine may produce maximum efficiency, reduces fuel consumption and exhaust emissions.

The present invention achieves the foregoing objectives by a technical solution involving a fuel saving device having a fuel passageway functionalized with a coating comprising gold-ferric oxide (Au-Fe ₃ O ₄ ) nanoparticles. The device further comprises a supercapacitor for fascilitating ionization so thatthe smaller molecules of the fuel after cracking can be ionized and become easily burnable. It has been noted that Au-Fe3O4 nanoparticles are extremely effective in ionization due to better electrical conductivity and are also robust with good adherence to the fuel passageways.

The device according to the present Invention can be embodied in the form of a shell, fuel filter, conduit or any type of engine component through which the hydrocarbon fuel can be passed and get into contact with the coating comprising Au-Fe ₃ O ₄ nanoparticles.

Energetic and catalytic nanoparticles of Au-ferric oxide are nano-sized having a particle size ranging from 1 to 100 nm, more preferably from 20 to 80 nm, and most preferably between 20 to 40 nm. The nanoparticles are usually metallic with an oxide layer, and are characterized by a high rate of energy release. In particular, energetic nanoparticles offer a high volumetric heat of oxidation, enabling transportation of more energy per given fuel volume. When contacted with a fuel or a composite, they generally exhibit faster ignition timescales due to breaking of fuel molecules into huge number of sub-molecules which leads to dramatic increase in the surface- to- volume ratio, and in combustion processes as well as fuel saving. Nano-sized energetic particles offer the potential of controlled burning rates, increased combustion efficiencies, and reduced sensitivity.

Au-Fe3O4 nanoparticles according to the present invention can be synthesized with the methods known in the art such as Pariti et al, “Superparamagnetic Au-Fe3O4 nanoparticles: one-pot synthesis, biofunctionalization and toxicity evaluation"; Materials Research Express 1 (2014) 035023, which is incorporated herein as reference in its entirety. Accordingly, Au-Fe3O4 nanoparticles can be synthesized by using Fe(CO)5 and HAUC1 ₄ preferably in equimolar amounts in a solvent system.

According to an aspect of the present invention, the coating as described herein can be prepared by obtaining the Au-Fe ₃ O ₄ nanoparticles, mixing them in a solvent such as water and then dispersing said nanoparticles in said solvent system. In order to improve dispersibility of the nanoparticles, at least one dispersing polymer can be applied onto the nanoparticles which also ensures good adherence on the surface of the fuel passageway and application of a homogenous coating thereon. In particular embodiments, the dispersing polymer applied onto the nanoparticles is poly-L-lysine (PLL) or poly-D-lysine (PDL) polymer which are found to be advantageous particularly on glass and silica surfaces. Therefore, the fuel passageway of the device according to the present invention can be provided at least in part with a glass and silica surface so that the coating can be applied in a more advantageous manner. The coating solution can be prepared as already known from Abedin et al, "Polymer coated gold-ferric oxide superparamagnetic nanoparticles for theranostic applications", J. Nanobiotechnology, 16, Article number: 80 (2018), which is incorporated herein as reference in its entirety.

After applying the aforementioned coating to a fuel passageway a supercapacitor is incorporated to the device such that the coating is brought into electrical contact with said coating for improving magnetization and ionization of the hydrocarbon fuel.

The supercapacitor according to the present invention can be chosen from the supercapacitor devices conventionally available in the market such as those having a capacitance of from 0.1 to 500 Farads (F). As mentioned above, the nanoparticle composition comprises gold [Au] which in turn improves conductivity of the composition and ionization of the fuel molecules. By virtue of the supercapacitor, the coating with the nanoparticles is also functionalized and magnetized.

The nanoparticles according to the present invention can be applied to the surface of the fuel saving device through the fuel passageways, by way of a thermo-resisting paint. In this embodiment, the dispersion of nanoparticles as mentioned above is mixed with the paint and applied onto the surface of the fuel passageways in the fuel saving device.

Therefore, the nanoparticles according to the present invention are arranged in a device in fluid communication with the fuel. Due to this direct contact with the fluid, the ionization power and the catalyzing effect is directly transferred to the fuel molecules without the limitations of the systems in prior art Therefore, the magnetic component according to the instant invention is embodied as a fuel filter or a shell to be placed in cross-section of a fuel conduit whereby the nanoparticles arranged in direct fluid communication with the fuel. In specific embodiments, the nanoparticles can be arranged in a tablet which is placed into the shell in a replaceable manner.

The nanoparticles according to this invention do not dissolve in hydrocarbon fuel, and therefore they offer a longterm run in a particular device such as a filter as mentioned above.

Overall weight of the nanoparticles for use in the coating can be in the range of 50 mg to 300 mg, and more preferably 75 mg to 180 mg.

The inventor of the present invention has surprisingly found that the fuel saving device which is designed for ionization and combined system according to the instant invention can produce the effects of making combustion almost complete (with unburned hydrocarbon less than 20 ppm), lowering fuel consumption up to 50%, burning out carbon deposit, reducing gas pollution especially carbon monoxide (CO) which is reduced down to 0.0%, and increasing engine performance drastically.

The Au-Fe3O4 nanoparticles were synthesized by the synthesis technique based on the method that has been published by Pariti et al, by injecting 2.5 mM ofFe(CO) ₅ , 0.25 mM of HAuCl ₄ , 2.5 mM oleic acid, and 2.5 mM of oleylamine into 5 ml of Triton® X-100 at 85 °C. The mixture was mixed and the temperature was increased to 300 °C. The product was a black precipitate that was isolated from the reaction mixture and the powder collected was dried in air. 157 mg of dry powder containing Au-Fe ₃ O ₄ nanoparticles was used for the subsequent treatment.

The nanoparticles were then suspended in water, and silica based tablets in the form of a mesh were impregnated with said suspension for 8 hours under vacum drying such that water is removed and nanoparticles are entrapped in the silica based mesh. The tablet is then placed into a preformed casette in the fuel passageway of the fuel saving device equipped with a supercapacitor having a capacitance value of 4 F. The tablet is placed such that it occupies cross section of the fuel passageway and gets into fluid communication with the fuel, and at the same time, gets into electrical contact with the supercapacitor.

The so formed fuel saving device is was mounted to fuel lines of different vehicles before the engines thereof such that the fuel coming from their tanks is treated with the device and enters subsequently into their engines.

The fuel saving device as prepared according to Example 1 was installed in a Chrysler Sebring with a 2.4 L gasoline engine which ran 51.1 miles on San Diego highway cruising with 60 mph constant speed. It consumed 1.469 gal. The same car consumed 2.322 gal over the same distance without the device.

Same device in Example 1 was installed into a 2020 Toyota Camry with 2.4 L engine which ran 45.9 miles on Chicago Indiana highway cruising with 60 mph constant speed. It consumed 0.703 gal. The same car consumed 1.434 gal over the same distance withoutthe device. Example 4

A fuel filter as described in Example 1 was used in the tests under supervision and inspection of SGS - Jordan on Sept 9th, 2017, under the following protocol. Findings of the inspector in his report were as follows:

The device was installed on the gasoline line for a car which has the below specifications: Honda Civic 2000, Plate No. (13-66950), Engine No. (D15Z4/5001675), 1500cc, 5 passangers capacity.

The car tank was filled with gasoline and device has been activated.

The car was driven for 51 km with an average speed of 100 km/h.

Then the car tank was refilled with gasoline to check how much litres it will take (the new litres are equal to the consumed litres).

In this test there were 3 passangers and it took (1.403) litres in 51 km drive.

The car was driven again without installing the device for 51 km with an average speed of 20 100 km/h. It took (3.528) litres at the of the test.

The test result was certified by SGS - Jordan.