Environmental pollution by exhaust gas from internal combustion engine burning liquid fuel is and has been a big social problem.
In particular, Particulate Material (PM) that is contained in the exhaust gas from diesel engine which uses gas oil and heavy oil has been identified as a potential causes to cancer, bronchitis asthma and hay fever. It is desired to reduce PM to minimize or eliminated these problems.
There are PM reduction devices such as DFP (Diesel Particulate Filter) or oxidization catalyst which removes PM in the exhaust gas when installed directly in the line of exhaust pipe from diesel engine. These devices have some problem because they are installed directly in the exhaust pipe line and are a problem with maintenance on the device that filters and captures the PM requiring the device to be periodically emptied and otherwise maintained.
As a device to clean the exhaust gas, some liquid fuel reforming devices are known to reform liquid fuel into fuel with better quality and better fuel economy by the effect of catalyst which generates minus ion or far-infrared radiation in order to make complete combustion of the fuel in engine. (for example Prior Art 1) Japanese Patent 2887703
The Tourmaline, described in the Prior Art 1 and used for the liquid fuel reforming device, does not show strong self-polarization characteristic and does not have enough ionization ability. The Tourmaline has a characteristic to self-polarize by heat or pressure and the Tourmaline emits minus-ions to ionize air or water in the vicinity.
The liquid fuel reforming device described in the Prior Art 1 does not reform liquid fuel sufficiently because the catalyst ceramic and the far-infrared radiating ceramic are contained in a container separately. Heat transferred to the tourmaline with far-infrared radiation from the far-infrared radiation emitting substance is insufficient to induce self-polarization of the tourmaline and the minus-ions that are generated are not strong enough to reform the liquid fuel sufficiently.
USPTO Backgrounds
USPTO Backgrounds