JEDDAH: Amid rapid pace of industrial expansion as demand for goods remains unabated, skyrocketing fuel costs serve as a major impediment to economic growth. At this juncture, the age-old proverb “necessity is the mother of invention” comes to the fore once again with a sense of urgency to create a solution that will optimize and yet economize use of hydrocarbon fuels – which currently provide 95 percent of the world's total energy needs (including heating, transport, electricity generation and other uses). Against this backdrop, the US-based Green Star Group formulated and developed an environmental-friendly fuel enhancer that drastically cuts back energy consumption and associated pollutants. In an interview with the Saudi Gazette, John C. Mills, the company's managing director and chief technology officer, said the non-toxic and non-flammable compound dubbed “Dragon Fire 888”, took 13 years of research and development before it was commercialized. At present, it is awaiting patent approval in the US, he added. Dragon Fire 888 is a fuel combustion enhancer which employs unique combustion chemistry technology to completely utilize hydrocarbon fuels, resulting in reduced fuel consumption, reduced harmful exhaust emissions, reduced green house gas (GHG) emissions and reduced CO2 footprint per mile. Mills visited the Kingdom last month and held meetings with some prospective Saudi partners in both the private and public sectors. He said the initial discussions were “promising.” He planned to visit again in the next three months to follow up the preliminary talks. Since Dragon Fire 888 improves combustion efficiency, more hydrocarbons are converted to “work” and leave the combustion chamber as CO2 instead of CO, or HCx (unburned fuel), he said. Consequently, the percentage of CO2 in the exhaust stream increases and other pollutants decrease. By adding Dragon fire 888, fuel efficiency is improved, more work (or distance traveled) is performed per unit of fuel and therefore, per unit of exhaust, Mills explained. He is eyeing on “big end-users” of fossil fuels such as the heavy industries, shipping, mining, mechanized agricultural farms, power plants and transport sector as the primary beneficiaries of Dragon Fire 888 for the simple reason that they consume more fuels in their operations. Dragon Fire 888 equally works well with both diesel and gasoline, he noted. “When discussing engine emissions for ‘scientific' purposes, outputs are measured as the number of grams emitted per kilometer traveled. Since distance traveled increases faster than grams of CO2 produced, the net effect is a reduction in the amount of CO2 entering the environment,” he pointed out. Mills, who owned a chemical company in Texas for 25 years before completely devoting himself into research and development of the fuel enhancer, said the product is already being exported to Thailand since late 2009 under the name FCE 888, where it is also being sold to the Cambodian market by the same successful Thai trader since early 2010. It is introduced in the US in the first quarter of this year under Uncle Albert's brand, he added. It is a unique blend of nano-materials derived from naturally occurring minerals and oxygen, which works at the molecular level during the moment of combustion to increase the amount of energy released in the combustion process of a piston engine, resulting in the use of less diesel fuel, simply by inducing a more complete, and therefore more efficient burning of diesel fuel. Adding the solution to fuel helps combustion process become more efficient. Unburned carbon is reduced, therefore there is less available carbon to build up in the combustion chamber. Besides, engine combustion cycles are more consistent allowing the power settings to be “dialed in” more precisely, in effect, “Dragon Fire 888 allows the engine to work at the same level on less fuel.” Highlighting the cost efficiency of the solution, Mills said only a liter of highly concentrated Dragon Fire 888 can treat 360,000 liters of diesel and 385,000 liters of gasoline. “Independent laboratory tests demonstrated that fuel economy improvements exceeded 7.5 percent by using the solution, organic emissions reduced by more than 25 percent, NOx (nitrogen oxides) emissions – a source of smog and “acid rain are also reduced by more than 20 percent, and diesel particulate is lessened by more than 35 percent, without changing the defining qualities of the fuels,” Mills explained. Dragon Fire 888 “works even better” in older engines, he said, with more noticeable fuel efficiency improvement. In vehicles, fuel blended with Dragon Fire 888 increases efficiency by 18.4 percent when traveling on highways and by 11.4 percent on city off-roads. Engine maintenance is another common benefit of using the fuel additive. Dragon Fire 888 prevents the buildup of sludge and other deposits in different areas of the engine. Because there is less buildup in the lines and many of the moving parts on the motor, less stress is placed on the engine during operation, effectively prolonging the life of the vehicle or engine itself. Tests conducted revealed that utilizing Dragon Fire 888 over thousands of miles “shows no indications of increased wear or metal stress. Many piston heads showed decreased carbon deposits. Sparkplugs of petrol engines treated with Dragon Fire 888 were cleaner and their ceramic parts showed less heat stress than those of untreated engines.” Dragon Fire 888 is also well suited for marine shipping and barge industry vessels which use #2 or #3 Fuel Oil (Diesel), in which a liter of concentrated nano-agent treats more than 100,000 liters of diesel. In the case of Saudi Arabia, Mills stressed that oil refineries too, stand to gain from Dragon Fire 888 because whatever oil is saved by local consumers as a consequence of using fuel combustion enhancer, could be diverted to export markets.
