Wonderfuel Water

TURNING inferior metal into gold may have been a medieval fantasy, but how about turning water into black gold? Another fantasy? Last week, in a demonstration reminiscent of medieval alchemy, a school drop-out from Tamil Nadu baffled many a scientific mind by conjuring up a petrol-like substance from a mixture of water and some herbs known only to him. Of course, it could, like many others before it, turn out to be a fraud, but at the moment the exercise has left the scientist community a bewildered lot.

 "Mind-boggling, but true," exclaims N.K. Jha, a chemistry professor at Delhi IIT, which had organised the experiment at the instance of the Department of Science and Technology (DST). "But," he cautions, "it is quite possible that we may have been fooled."

 Fooled or not, the wonder recipe did do the trick. Jha describes the steps: Take some water, add a motley of leaves and bark to it and let it boil for about 30 minutes. Once cooled, add a mix of salt, citric acid and traces of chemicals to the concoction.

Stir the solution and let it be. After a few minutes you can see a layer of oil materialising at the top. Pour it into a test tube and put a match to it. Abracadabra! It flares up, as if in celebration of the experiment's success.

Though this was 30-year-old Ramar Pillai's first public demonstration, he has been making this 'wonderfuel' in his village near Rajapalayam, in Tamil Nadu, for the past few years. Reportedly, many people use his fuel to drive their two-wheelers. Pillai, who was invited to Delhi by the DST secretary V. Ramamurthy, claims his herbal petrol would cost a mere rupee per litre. "He seems to be a genuine guy to me. He only wants money to put up a pilot plant in his village and some security as he has already suffered a attempt on his life," remarks Jha.

Seven years ago Pillai would never have thought that one day he would be standing on the threshold of fame and fortune (and fear!). It was sheer serendipity that led Pillai to this marvellous phenomenon. The first time he glimpsed it was on a school picnic when he observed a leaf being torched by a spark from a cooking stove. For 10 years this memory lay dormant in his mind. But soon he decided to look for it and finally tracked it down. Thus began a series of hit-and-trial experiments that finally led to the magic formula.

Magical it might seem, but what do scientists make of it? So far, the evidence appears to be in Pillai's favour. Points out Dr A.K. Chakrabarty, senior adviser at the DST and a Pillai sympathiser: "Tests conducted by Madras IIT found Pillai's petrol to be 10 times more efficient than ordinary petrol. Which means it would have great potential as a fuel for two and four-wheelers."

While very few doubt that some sort of hydrocarbon is being produced, none of them have a clue to the 'how' of it. Essentially, they are racking their brains over two niggling mysteries. One, where on earth is so much carbon, necessary to make the fuel, coming from? Baffled boffins have taken vague shots at explaining the phenomenon. Conjectures Jha: "To my mind, there are two possibilities, but both apparently implausible. First, the reaction could be wrenching carbon from the air in the form of carbon dioxide. But then when you consider that air has less than one per cent of it, the explanation doesn't sound very convincing. Second, a nuclear reaction could be producing the carbon. But this is far less convincing, considering nuclear reaction requires extremely high temperatures. " 

Jha is also nonplussed by the increase in the volume of the original solution. "We heated about one litre of water which at the end of the experiment swelled to 1.5 litres. Amazingly, of the 500 ml extra liquid, about 200 ml was liquid fuel. And that's a large quantity." According to Jha, this violates the mass balance principle where the mass of the reactants equal that of the products. Ramamurthy has said that DST will recruit reputed scientists to crack this mystery.

While scientists try to tease out the mysteries, DST, realising the importance of this discovery, has decided to apply for a global patent. Ramamurthy told reporters that "we have no doubt that we are sitting on something big, but we must proceed with caution and prudence." The department has also decided to build a 300 litre per day pilot plant at Raja palyam.

Even as the news of this wonder-process travels far and wide, the man behind it all may soon disappear into a zone of high security. DST officials have been instructed not to reveal his whereabouts and journalists denied interviews, all because of the paranoia about the man being hijacked or killed by mercenaries and 'foreign powers'. Chakrabarty revealed that "DST had no plans to publicise the matter till the patent had been bagged". But considering how very public the matter has already become, the DST could be in for much embarrassment should the fuel fail to deliver.