I noticed that you posted "If we made an engine that recaptured the unspent fuel or had a system of burning the fuel completely we would have a better ratio of conversion from matter to energy."
The thing of it is, engines already burn about 98% of the fuel. It's just that only one third of the resultant energy is spent on torque. The other 2/3rds of the energy is wasted as heat and friction. To claim that more efficient combustion would result in better mileage is wishful thinking. It's not the combustion that needs tweaking, it's the amount of usable energy that comes out of the combustion.
If you google topics concerning emmisions, you'll find that some standard emissions are already spiting out 18% oxygen, indicating that there is already plenty of oxygen to complete the combustion cycle.
I'm not saying that something like this is entirely impossible, but some of the numbers don't add up. Firstly, if the combustion efficiency rate were to elevate from ~35% to ~97%, don't you think that the fuel economy would double/triple as well? Instead, it is said to increase mileage by 10-40%. Rather modest increases for such proposed efficiency leaps... Secondly, I believe that the 35% quoted in the article is taken out of context. Instead, it is refering to the amount of energy that is actually converted to useable power. The other 65% or so is lost as heat and through friction which cannot be used as power for the typical engine. One final thing to note is that most cars today are produced with small computers on them that monitor emmisions and adjust the fuel/air ratio accordingly. This brings about the closest reasonable stoichiometric levels possible, meaning the most complete burn you can get. Think about it, California emission standards (some of the toughest you can get) state that your car must put out fewer than 200 parts per million hydrocarbons (unburned fuel). You can easily figure that.02% of your emmisions are going to be made of unburned fuel(200/1000000=.0002 or.02%) while the rest of the fuel is emitted as CO2, or fully combusted fuel (about 120000 PPM or 12%). As you can see, the ratio of burned to unburned fuel is highly exagerated by the article and to suggest that burning the excess.02 percent hydrocarbons would increase mileage substancially is absurd.
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I noticed that you posted "If we made an engine that recaptured the unspent fuel or had a system of burning the fuel completely we would have a better ratio of conversion from matter to energy." The thing of it is, engines already burn about 98% of the fuel. It's just that only one third of the resultant energy is spent on torque. The other 2/3rds of the energy is wasted as heat and friction. To claim that more efficient combustion would result in better mileage is wishful thinking. It's not the combustion that needs tweaking, it's the amount of usable energy that comes out of the combustion.
If you google topics concerning emmisions, you'll find that some standard emissions are already spiting out 18% oxygen, indicating that there is already plenty of oxygen to complete the combustion cycle.
I'm not saying that something like this is entirely impossible, but some of the numbers don't add up. Firstly, if the combustion efficiency rate were to elevate from ~35% to ~97%, don't you think that the fuel economy would double/triple as well? Instead, it is said to increase mileage by 10-40%. Rather modest increases for such proposed efficiency leaps... Secondly, I believe that the 35% quoted in the article is taken out of context. Instead, it is refering to the amount of energy that is actually converted to useable power. The other 65% or so is lost as heat and through friction which cannot be used as power for the typical engine. One final thing to note is that most cars today are produced with small computers on them that monitor emmisions and adjust the fuel/air ratio accordingly. This brings about the closest reasonable stoichiometric levels possible, meaning the most complete burn you can get. Think about it, California emission standards (some of the toughest you can get) state that your car must put out fewer than 200 parts per million hydrocarbons (unburned fuel). You can easily figure that .02% of your emmisions are going to be made of unburned fuel(200/1000000=.0002 or .02%) while the rest of the fuel is emitted as CO2, or fully combusted fuel (about 120000 PPM or 12%). As you can see, the ratio of burned to unburned fuel is highly exagerated by the article and to suggest that burning the excess .02 percent hydrocarbons would increase mileage substancially is absurd.