Inventor: liquid boosts mileage, reduces pollution

A southern Oregon inventor claims he has developed a way to not only save you money at the pump but also reduce air pollution.

"We've come up with a solution to get all of the fuel to burn efficiently," said the inventor, Bob Kurko. "If you get all of the fuel burning, you're not going to have emissions."

Kurko, pictured below, said he invented E3 ultra clean fuel catalyst in his garage in Cave Junction.

He said it changes the way gasoline is used in the engine, making it burn 100 percent efficiently.

Kurko said your car would actually act as an air cleaner. When the air from the outside is pulled in through the air intake system, through the filter and then mixed in the engine with the gasoline and the fuel catalyst, what's burned and comes out of your tail pipe is actually cleaner than the air that went in to your engine.

Lt. Col. James Boozell said he is a believer.

"If every car in the country were driving on this, global warming would be eliminated," said Boozell, who is a Department of Defense employee at the Pentagon while moonlighting as a spokesman for Kurko's E3 fuel catalyst.

He said he has to fight his own bosses and oil companies to make them listen.

"Unless they are directed to use the product, they are not going to voluntarily use the product … so it may take some sort of directive for all of our fuel companies and our large government agencies to come on board," said Boozell, pictured at right.

He said he became a believer when he ran the product in diesel engines at the South Carolina National Guard.

Some of the vehicles - including Hummers and large two-and-a-half ton trucks - saw fuel efficiency increase 45 percent and emissions drop 98 percent, Boozell said.

KATU reporter Thom Jensen tested the catalyst in his own car.

First he ran his family's sport utility vehicle on regular gasoline. After burning through a tank of fuel, his vehicle's onboard computer showed an average gas mileage of 18.2 mpg.
 
Then he filled up again and added a quart of the E3 catalyst and ran the SUV under his usual driving conditions. The computer showed he was getting almost 22 mpg.

This was far from a scientific test – such a lab test would cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.

So we asked Portland State University chemistry professor Shankar Rananavare what he thought about our results.

He said the gas mileage probably comes from a cleaner burning engine. Rananavare said the fuel catalyst may really be a fuel system cleaner.

"There's nothing inherit in that material that gives you extra energy," the professor said.

His preliminary conclusion, he said, is only based on KATU's description of the product. The actual materials used in the catalyst have not been made public.

Rananavare said he wants to see more tests done in lab conditions with new car engines burning the same brand of fuel.

He said tests should be done repeatedly with results that are also repeated before you can truly say the catalyst works.

We also put Kurko's emissions claims to the test.

The reporter tested his 2004 Volvo at Morgan Automotive in southeast Portland on a four-gas analyzer.

It ran super clean before the additive, with hydrocarbons at just 8 ppm (parts per million) and carbon monoxide at zero – which is clean enough to pass the strictest emissions requirements in the U.S.

With the fuel additive, there were no hydrocarbons (pictured at right), which is not unheard of but not seen often, according to those at the shop.

Kurko said that so far government agencies and oil companies in the U.S. have had the same response to his invention.

"They laugh at us," he said.

As gas prices soar, though, Kurko said the laughing is beginning to stop and suitors are lining up, mostly in other countries.

"I'm gonna go where they want it, so if they don't want it here in America that's fine," Kurko said. "We'll go other places."

To learn more about the company and its product, click here.