Save on fuel expenditure with electrolyser

Innovative

It’s time to fend off worries about the ever-rising fuel prices. For, you can save significantly on your fuel expenditure.

A Chennai-based firm, Ti Anode Fabricators Pvt Ltd, has developed a simple technology which it claims can save almost 30 per cent of fuel costs in motorcycles and up to 20 per cent in cars.

The product, called electrolyser, also helps to reduce emission of harmful gases and double the engine life, according to Velappan Jeyakummar, Managing Director of the firm.

The product is on display at Renewable Asia, 2012, an exhibition on renewable energy solutions that will conclude on Sunday. 

All one has to do is to install the electrolyser, which works on the HydroGen system, in their vehicle.

The HydroGen system, according to Jeyakummar, consists of an electrolyser, a direct current battery, and a pulse doser. First, distilled water should be poured into the electrolyser - 20 ml of water lasts 1,000 kilometres (100 ml for every 8,000 miles).

The technology separates the soft water (H2O) into Hydrogen and Oxygen by the electrolysis process. Then, the Oxy-Hydrogen gas is fed into the air intake of the engine.

It combines with the fuel in the injector system and restructures the fuel molecules, enhancing fuel efficiency and cutting down the emission.

One of the main highlights of the technology is that no hydrogen gas is stored on board of the vehicle but is produced only when the engine is running and is consumed immediately. The entire system can withstand the vagaries of climate.

The firm has developed the system for various types of vehicles. The one for two-wheelers (125 CC) costs about Rs 3,500, autorickshaws (1,000 CC) about Rs 17,000, cars (up to 2,000 CC) Rs 27,000, buses (up to 6,500 CC) Rs 1.3 lakh, and diesel gensets (50,000 CC) Rs 6.5 lakh.

No DL to ride this bike

Among the other features at the exhibition is the environment-friendly battery-operated bike manufactured by iBike, a Bangalore-based firm.

The bike (less than 50 CC), once charged fully for eight hours from a normal electric outlet, can be ridden for 60 kilometres. It uses only 1.5 unit of electricity. That means, a 60-kilometre ride costs only Rs five.

“No registration, no driving licence, no gear, no petrol, and low maintenance — that sums up the bike’s characteristics,” says V Ravi Chandran, the firm’s sales officer. The bike weighs 84 kg and has tubeless tyres. It, however, cannot be used for long rides. The vehicle is priced at Rs 35,000.