From: glhurst@onr.com (Gerald L. Hurst)
Newsgroups: sci.chem,alt.engr.explosives
Subject: Re: Air Fuel Mixture Ionization
Date: 29 Nov 1995 06:45:06 GMT
Organization: Consulting Chemist
Lines: 47

In article <49fbks$fl1@cobia.gulf.net>, Chuck Thigpen <cthiggy@gulf.net> says:

>I am in no way a chemist.  However, I am a mechanical engineer looking
>to find a way to ionize an air & fuel mixture using electricity.  Would
>it be possible to ionize this mixture using an electromagnetic field?  
>Or am I just out to lunch.  What other ways could I ionize this mixture?
>Thank you.

You will have no problem getting the mix to ionize at low
pressures. A Tesla discharge against a glass tube of the 
materials will do the job. However, at any pressure, your
fuel and oxidizer won't take long to react with one another,
probably explosively. You could say that the sparkplugs in
your car ionize fuel/air mixtures at least in the vicinity 
of the electrodes.

There have been some gadgets on the market which claim to 
preionize fuel/air in cars or to create a "corona" effect.
I knew a mechanical engineer who strapped  one on his car
and believed he derived better milage from that P.T. Barnum
device.  

"Positive ion" generators were also very popular at one time. 
I knew a fellow , who had one in his horse trailer and one in 
the cab of his pickup. He was sure they made both himself 
and the horse run faster. In fact, he was so convinced about 
the merits of these "pizza pans on a stick" that he boasted 
openly about how he had conned the unsuspecting inventor out 
of the patent rights for a measley $20K.

Hmm. Come to remember, this was the same guy who also prided 
himself for having relieved another gullible inventor of a
priceless piece of technology for another $20K. This time it
was a system for cleaning up oil spills by sprinkling
radioactive powder on them so they'd polymerize. Once the 
slick was solidified, you could just roll it up. I guess 
this also involved ionization.

I always thought I, too, should have let myself be cheated out
of one of my great inventions, but somehoe I never got around
to it.

If you're sure you want to ionize fuel/oil mixtures, give me 
a call :)

Jerry