Trucking companies anxious to get their hands on an innovative new diesel and water blend alternative fuel may have to wait until standard tests are done by the Environmental Protection Agency.

Lubrizol's plans to market PuriNOx were announced recently at a press conference, and the company already is selecting distributors. The tests will take another year and cost about $2.5 million, Terry Thiele, manager of Lubrizol's regulatory affairs group, told the Associated Press.
The technology behind PuriNOx -- water injection and fuel and water mixtures -- improves atomization of the fuel/air charge on injection, improves combustion, lowers peak combustion temperatures and reduces NOx and particulates. "We do not think that there is any credible risk of a toxicity issue," Thiele told the AP, adding that government testing requirements weren't written with this kind of innovation in mind. "They've never seen anything like this before," he said.
The EPA wants to make sure it knows how the addition of water to the blended fuel might change the molecules of tailpipe emissions, Don Zinger, assistant director of the EPA's Office of Transportation and Air Quality, told AP. The health implications of breathing in those molecules are also unknown, he said.
Lubrizol already has done some testing, including a six-month field experiment in which 10 public buses in Lake County, Ohio, ran on PuriNOx. In the field test, the fumes from those 10 buses contained up to 32 percent less nitrogen oxide and 55 percent fewer particulates, the company said. (See "New Fuel Cuts Emissions," 3/9/2001.)
In another test of the fuel, the California Air Resources Board certified a 14 percent reduction in NOx and a 63 percent reduction in particulates. (See "California Verifies PuriNOx as Diesel Alternative," 2/2/2001.)