Ecoflow - The Science

This document is an opinion on how Ecoflow works by Nigel Broderick Technical Director of Ecoflow Limited

The subject of fuel consumption and more importantly, fuel saving can always be seen as subjective. However, the following notes are intended to be objective in content and should be used as such for guidance.

When investigating results of any combustion process, the nearer the fuel air ratio is to the stoichiometric point, the lesser the change in the combustion process will be.

To take an example: A boiler running at 60% efficiency leaves considerable room for improvement, whereas it is difficult to quantify the improvement of a boiler running at 92% efficiency. The same can be said of vehicle engines. The engine in a new vehicle will be running at maximum efficiency, but of course over a period of time wear and tear will leave its mark, resulting in a reduction when compared to the initial parameters. Account must be taken of any human input e.g. from the driver. Fuel saving can only be a result of increased efficiency, and a driver can easily transfer this greater efficiency to greater performance resulting in a very similar fuel consumption to that obtained before fitting any device. Tests to be completed on a vehicle engine should therefore only be conducted on a chassis dynamometer. Tests to be completed on heating apparatus should account not only for fuel used but also degree days and apparatus work load.

When Ecoflow first came to the market there was, needless to say, considerable scepticism. This is now disappearing as laboratory tests from various countries around the world are supporting both the theory of Ecoflow and the claims for the product.

To ascertain the chemical processes involved when hydrocarbon fuel is combusted I refer to the textbook “Engineering Thermodynamics” by D.B. Spalding and E.H. Cole, third edition. The primary processes involved can be summarised to first order effects as follows:

“What the exhaust gases actually truly consist of is hard to determine and involves the second law [of thermodynamics] considerations. An approximate rule however is to assume that first, all the carbon is burned to the monoxide CO and that thereafter any remaining oxygen is equally shared between this gas, oxidising to CO2 and the hydrogen oxidising to H2O. The exhaust gases then comprise CO2, CO, H2O, H2 and N2 if the fuel is a hydrocarbon.”

This process as described above is for burning fuel in air at relatively low temperatures. At these temperatures, a process of disassociation occurs, in which other molecules and atoms become ionised sufficiently for them to form compounds, thus producing the nitrous oxides (NO and NO2) and new forms of hydrocarbons. These effects are still second order effects.