The present invention relates to electrostatic fluid treatment and, more particularly, to the treatment of fuels as well as liquid and gaseous hydrocarbons, water and water containing fluids such as Maple sap to be made into Maple syrup.
Many engine fuel economy retrofit products and various devices have been developed in the past to improve fuel economy. Some devices are said to ionize fuel in order to improve fuel economy. One such device is disclosed in the International application published under the number WO 00/15957.
Other types of fuel conditioning systems such as magnets that are attached to the fuel line produce a magnetic field adjacent to the fuel line. Such a method and apparatus is disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,080,080 and 5,271,369. U.S. Pat. No. 4,572,145 also describes a magnetic device using a magnet which is embedded in a U shaped body of non magnetic material which may be retrofitted on the fuel line.
Due to the wide range of fuel types, qualities, temperatures and flow rates, a magnetic system is unable to properly condition the fuel efficiently.
Another type of fuel conditioning method is by the insertion of a single or multiple pills of various types in the fuel reservoir. Their main problem is that, in order to increase engine performance and reduce gas consumption of internal combustion engines, a pill must be deposited in the reservoir at every filling of the reservoir. The dissolution of the pill can produce crystallization inside the gas line thus creating a blockage. An omission to insert a pill during a filling will result in no benefits in performance and no reduction in fuel savings.
One other known method and device is by passing the fuel through a warming or heating device in order to theoretically create a better combustion of the said fuel. This method and device has its drawback. As with the fixed magnet(s) the wide range of fuel types, qualities, temperature variants and flow rates do not always produce the right conditions to generate increased engine performance reduce pollutants and reduce fuel consumption.
None of the above devices or methods are easily adaptable for different fluids. There is therefore a need for a fluid conditioning or fluid treatment device which can be used not only for vehicle fuel but also for other fluids.
apparatus for conditioning fluid flowing through a conduit. Two coils are coiled around the conduit at different locations and connected to a circuit which generates square wave signals which are alternately fed to the two coils. One pulse is fed to one coil and the next pulse is fed to the other coil. The fluid in the conduit may be any hydrocarbon based fuel, oil, or liquid. The treatment of the present invention has also been used with conduits containing water, and Maple sap. In the case of water, changes in the hardness of the water occurred, and in the case of Maple sap, less energy was required to convert the sap to Maple syrup. These surprising results cannot be explained in terms of ionization, but may be due to vaporization of the water molecules; in any event, the applicants do not wish to be bound by any specific theory as to the results obtained.
In a first embodiment the present invention provides a device for treatment of a fluid flowing through a conduit, the device comprising:
a first coil wound around the conduit at a first location,
a second coil wound around the conduit at a second location adjacent to the first location,
a circuit which produces a first signal for the first coil and a second signal for the second coil,
wherein
both the first and second signals are periodic,
the first signal is alternated with the second signal, and
the coils are connected to the circuit.
In a second embodiment, the present invention provides a method of treating fluids flowing through a conduit, the method comprising:
(a) providing a first and a second coil,
(b) placing each coil at a different location on the conduit,
(c) generating a first and a second periodic signal, and
(d) feeding the first signal to the first coil and feeding the second signal to the second coil alternately. Preferably the frequency of the first and second signals are ramped between a first frequency and a second frequency recurrently over a predetermined period of time.