MMO Burn and pH tests

Status
Not open for further replies.
Joined
Jul 2, 2007
Messages
689
Location
Chicago, IL
Okay so while I'm recovery from the fumes I'll post this up real quick.

Let me tell you, the fumes from MMO are real real bad for the human body. My fume hood failed midway through the burn
frown.gif


Anyways, my first post was about the solubility of MMO in gas. Which showed good results as the MMO didn't seem to settle out of standard 87 pump gas.

I decided to burn some pure MMO (25ml's worth) to see if I could get some pH readings from the ash. I did pure MMO without gas to simulate ash buildup in a vehicle that's been running it for a long long long and long time. Well water is a byproduct of combustion thus if any acid is gonna form water is going to be a big factor.

IMG_0563.jpg


Simple, I have a ceramic bowl that has MMO and a small watch glass to collect some ash on. I then take the ash and submerge in water and mix to see if the ash upon mixing with water produces any acidic byproducts. Surprisingly the MMO did not light with an ordinary match. I had to use the Bunsen burner on the counter top to get it going.

IMG_0564.jpg


MMO has a nice slow rich burn, the volatile stuff burned off first and the oil base started to concentrate on the bottom. I made sure to burn it all, by applying a Bunsen sideways to burn off the oil base as well.

IMG_0565.jpg


I put the watch glass in a beaker with 200ml water that I had pH'd earlier to be pH 7. Then I mixed by hand for roughly 1 hour.

IMG_0567.jpg


To my surprise the ash and water combo stayed at the exact same pH no visible change on the stick. That's good news, that means the by products of the MMO in an engine don't produce acidic by products.

IMG_0568.jpg


I decided to go further and take a neutral filter paper (I pH'd it in water earlier to make sure it was a pH of 7) and wipe the inside of the bowl that the MMO was burning in; since there was a good amount of black residue there.

IMG_0569.jpg


Again to my surprise the pH was still a 7 disregarding some oily residue that I missed.


Well MMO gets my thumbs up and I'll probably continue using it since it's so readily available in my area. It doesn't readily separate from pump gas and it doesn't seem to produce acidic byproducts.

Next I will try some of the Lucas stuff after my small stash of MMO runs out. I believe NAPA sells the Lucas additive and there is one not to far from me.

Hope you enjoyed looking!
 
MMO and fixing up junk cars put me through college. I bought smokers and cleaned them up, tuned them up and sold them. I unsmoked cars that were so bad you could not drive behind them with MMO, gallons of it, and few teardowns. That was in the early 60's with there were a lot of smokers on the road, money to be made.
 
Yeah that's what I thought as well, but even at this heavy concentration of pure MMO burning in an open cup it did not show signs of dramatic pH change which was kind of surprising. I thought it would be acidic though because I heard someone say that it contained halogens.

But yeah for those of you who have been using MMO for a while now, rock on!
 
Awsome, Thanks for doing that others will be thankfull as well!!
I notice my motor runs better with MMO mixed with the lucus. I am using the lucus mixed since it looks like it would perform as a better USL. I use more MMO as the winter months come around so It will poor into the tank. The lucus get real thick under 20*F.
Thats great to here it butns rean clean.Thats what were looking for. Would like to see the lucus test and maybe one test mixed 50/50??
 
I think you may be on on to something with the 50/50 mix. It does sound like a good idea. I will stop by NAPA today to go pickup the Lucas.
 
Hhhhhmmmmmm....well at least im down to my last doses of FP60. Lucas has been great and im about to do my second dose. I may try MMO next.
 
Interesting. The ash probably doesn't dissolve in the water and if so, that would make it impossible to change the pH of the water. When hydrocarbons burn, they always produce some acids and I'd expect that they went up with the flames instead of staying in the cup. It's a non-issue though since burning gas produces acids too.

What I think would be useful is to burn x amount of gasoline in a clean cup. Then burn x amount of a mixture of gas and MMO in the ratio that you'd put in the gas tank. Then compare the residue left by each. Gas usually just leaves mostly carbon when burned on a surface while the gas/MMO mixture may also leave some ash and thin layer of varnish (both undesirable but the other benefits may outweigh those negatives).
 
JAG I fully agree with you. I may try to do the test that you have suggested at a later time when things here at work don't get so hectic anymore.

Your idea about the acids going up with the exhaust is great. I knew that the ashes would not be water soluble but I thought that at least some of the acidic residue would be stuck on the ashes. For the most part I guess not. Even after wiping the container that the MMO was burning in I could not really get the pH to change. I did notice some varnish on the container as you have said, but it was far less than expected. Plus in an engine we are talking about a gas/MMO mix that burns for the most part at a good ratio with air. So I'd assume that the low amount of varnish on the burn container would translate to minuscule amounts of varnish in an engine. One thing I can not really test for (well I really could if I could dig up the equipment somewhere) is the cleaning capabilities of MMO. I'm sure they to play a factor in reducing carbon/varnish buildup.

Thanks for you input!
 
Rig up something that will bubble the combustion products through a separate container of water. This will dissolve any gaseous combustion products into the water(well, perhaps not all of them).
 
I have zero experience with MMO. Is it o.k. to suck it into the manifold?
 
Quote:


I have zero experience with MMO. Is it o.k. to suck it into the manifold?





I had a automatic topend oiler that did exactly that on a propane powered 300ci ford six. Had it set for ~1 QT MMO every 1500-2000 miles. Before the oiler the dry fuel would eat the valve/seals/seats, after, well, it's probably still runnin today.
 
Guess I should qualify that the oiler metered the oil in, not sure about sucking a whole quart down aka seafoam method.
 
Quote:


Rig up something that will bubble the combustion products through a separate container of water. This will dissolve any gaseous combustion products into the water(well, perhaps not all of them).




Yes! A "scrubber". I dunno how it would be done on a small scale via the typical induced draft. You'd have to rig some sealed setup with positive air pressure to provide the combustible air ..have some "through the wall" ignitor ..and percolate it through the water (so to speak).

Somewhere in Lab-land there has to be some way to do this.
 
Gary; I was thinking more of using one of the vacuum taps in the lab to draw the combustion gasses through the water by dropping the pressure above it. I really, really doubt they'd let me do this. But rest assured, I'll be asking for all kinds of favors once I'm back in the labs in the fall
laugh.gif
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top