Consideration of the Pantone fuel processing issues ultimately leads
to a redesign of the IC engine. The engine can be viewed as a
chemical process line. The key to this is separating the
compression, burn and power tsakeoff stages. This separation of
stages is of course not a new concept, as the jet engine does just
this, and supercharged engines do this partially. What could be new
about this idea is what happens in the burn stage. Separating the
compression and power stages allows the burn stage to occur over as
long and varied a path as desired, provided it is well insulated. It
also permits applying the best mechanics to the compression and power
take-off tasks. Though not ideal, it is also possible, by re-valving
etc., to use selected pistons of an ordinary engine for compression,
and others for power take off, and by so doing permit the burn path
to be separated from the engine and arbitrarily long.
The burn path itself might consist of a pyrolysis chamber or
catalysis chamber, a gas plus fluidized bed burn chamber, a Brown's
gas injection chamber, a final burn catalytic chamber, followed by a
water injection chamber. Note that, by compressing first, any heat
added to the burn process improves the power output of the engine.
This includes pyrolysis watts, or external heat used for catalysis,
or even just external heat added to make the engine a hybrid internal-
external combustion engine. This also permits the use of external
heat sources, like solar. The final water injection converts excess
heat to pressure to increase horsepower, and, by dropping the
temperature, protects the power take-off turbine or pistons.
Post processing of the exhaust can be along the lines of existing
Pantone schemes.
Horace Heffner
http://www.mtaonline.net/~hheffner/
