What is the Pantone Engine or Pantone System? By Christophe Martz, ENSAIS M2001 mechanical engineer and founder of econology
Keywords: system, engine, process, Pantone, water, fuel cracking, processing, pollution control
I obtained my ENSAIS engineering degree by doing a study on the Pantone engine, this page will help you understand in a few minutes what it is.
The Pantine engine or system is a modification that can be performed on any existing gasoline or diesel engine. The main idea is to recover part of the heat (thermal losses) from the exhaust gases in order to pre-treat the fuel and / and the intake air with a certain proportion of misted water. This water contributes to the efficiency of the process but beware it is not not from a water engine but from an injection engine or adding water to the oxidizer!
Its name comes from the American inventor Paul Pantone who made the choice, for various reasons, to disseminate the plans of his invention on the Internet. The main reason for this distribution being, I think, that he is not able to develop his invention himself. Indeed; I met Mr Pantone and this meeting was more than disappointing as shown on this page Pantone engine, Paul Pantone and me. However, the concept of this invention is not uninteresting.
Indeed; it is a heat exchanger recovering the calories from the exhaust gases to transfer them to the intake gases or to the combustion air. Knowing that about 40% of the fuel consumed in an engine is lost in the exhaust, the idea of recovering part of these losses is interesting. The main result is a very impressive exhaust gas reduction as these few statements show: Pantone engine pollution.
This concerns the pantone assembly as recommended by the inventor: this assembly quickly shows its limits with reduced development resources, particularly in terms of power control and combustion control. It is therefore for the moment rather undeveloped but allows interesting things like, for example, run a small gasoline engine on domestic fuel and obtain a transparent flame with an oil burner!
Evolution towards water injection in diesel engines
There is a much simpler assembly which consists in passing only water into the reactor and mixing the mist obtained with the intake air of the engine. We therefore inject a low amount of water in the intake air. This assembly is particularly effective on diesel engines which show a systematic reduction in consumption of at least 20%. Black and unburnt smoke are also significantly reduced (40% decrease measured on a ZX-TD) and the engines slam less, which is characteristic of better combustion. Some farmers have mounted this principle on their tractors and there have been consumption reductions of up to 60%. An average between 30 and 40% is commonly accepted. These important and impressive values are reached when the engines are pushed to their thermodynamic limits. I saw pots reddening on agricultural tractors, it is at this moment that the injection of water gives all its effect because there is a probability that a water thermolysis takes place in the combustion chamber
To find out more, I invite you to read the different pages presented below and in particular to read the entire pantone engine engineer report
Christophe Martz, ENSAIS Engineer
To exchange about your experiments and obtain more specific advice, please visit le forum pantone engine.
- Interview article published in Auto Bio (the best water injection interview to date)
- Advantages and disadvantages of the Pantone engine
- The original Pantone engine plan
- Advantages and disadvantages of the Pantone engine
- Pantone engine assembly advice part 1
- Pantone engine assembly advice part 2
- List of parts and supplies needed to make a Pantone Motor
- Learn more about the Pantone engine
- Pantone engine faqs