Diesel, water and emulsifier powered boat

[Tony]

http://m.dailyecho.co.uk/news/14638559.Revolutionary_vessel_to_attempt_record_breaking_speeds_unveiled__in_Hampshire/

Interesting. I'm sure I've seen products to mix with fuel that are basically mostly water with some emulsifier. I've always dismissed them.

[Dickjotec]

"Running low on diesel? Add more water!" Why not run on the weaker mixture? I wonder what the ratio is and how the motor is modified.

[knighty]

it apparently carries 35,000 litres of diesel

my guess is it'll only be a few percent water added at most

2% saves carrying 7 ton of diesel


I read up about engines designed to use a water mix before, idea is that the water boils to steam giving you 'free' engine power using wast heat.... a few of them ran on petrol/diesel normally for the first stroke, and on the second stroke of the gnine they injected the water so there was no diesel/water mixing going on

nice idea but non of the ones I read about looked to work very well... lots of examples of engines, but no numbers quoted... seams to me like the only reason not to publish numbers/results is because they're bad :-(

[Tony]

Their page is here but a little quiet on the technical side of how it works:

http://www.clean-fuel-ltd.com/water-in-diesel-clean-fuel/

WiDE cuts PM and some greenhouse gas emissions by improving atomization of the hydrocarbon molecules increasing their surface area, leading to a more complete burn. This decreases the temperature of the combustion and improves the power output. As for PM emissions, the presence of water during the burning process intensively reduces the rate of formation of soot particles and enhances their burnout.

Despite the benefits, the development of this technology has been impeded for two main reasons -

Stability
The phenomenon of uncontrolled micro-explosions

Clean Fuel Ltd have cracked both of these problems by using the latest mixing equipment, along with an emulsifier, or stabilising solution.

Clean Fuel’s emulsified fuel works on a nano-level, eradicating uncontrolled micro-explosions and creating a stable low cost fuel.   

Their test data page has a little more:

http://www.clean-fuel-ltd.com/test-data/

[Julian]

We've touched on this at least once before ... http://biopowered.co.uk/forum/index.php/topic,2738.msg34653.html#msg34653

With diesels, the theory that was explained to me was that you had a water droplet surrounded by diesel, which, upon entering the cylinder, flashed to steam thus further atomising the fuel ... not sure how true that was.

We created the emulsion by mechanical means using a centrifugal pump type of design (I can do it way more easily and at far less cost in my processor when water washing!).

Not sure about using salt water unless they desalinate first ... in my vast experience of emulsions salt tends to break them!

[Tony]

The news article says desalination first.

Given it's not pre-mixed, it seems that the equipment to do the mixing travels with the engine.

[Julian]

The news article says desalination first.

Given it's not pre-mixed, it seems that the equipment to do the mixing travels with the engine.

Oops, sorry, only skipped through article! 

The marine engines we were working on were the size of a small house (the gen set on the RAF base were tiny in comparison) ... I'd recon for the engine in that boat something the size of a TAM 105 would do the job.