Promotional document explaining the benefits and application of KATALITE, a catalytic agent for improving engine combustion.
| Identifier | ExFiles\Box 74\3\ scan0355 | |
| Date | 30th December 1922 guessed | |
| SPECIFIC CLAIMS FOR KATALITE Mechanical Engineering can-not materially influence a chemical reaction like the explosion of gasoline. 1. More miles per gallon of gasoline. KATALITE makes the mixture more efficient. Being more efficient it may be thinned down to the minimum. Read what KATALITE users have saved. 2. More power at all speeds. The combustion being instantaneous all the power is delivered when compression is at its highest point. 3. A cooler motor. KATALITE in itself is a wonderful radiator of heat and during the suction stroke the surface of the combustion chamber has a chance to cool off and to radiate the otherwise wasted heat into the fuel-air mixture. 4. Less carbon. Slowly burning mixtures leave quantities of unconsumed carbon. This cakes up and has to be periodically removed. The only carbon you find in a Katalized motor is in the form of soot, easily blown out before it has a chance to encrust. 5. Increased oil mileage. Slowly burning mixtures fail to consume all the gasoline. The excess washes down the cylinder walls, diluting the oil. Not only does the oil require frequent changing but its lubricating qualities grow less every day. The less often one has to put in oil, the less chance to forget it. 6. Greater flexibility. In addition to the comfort and pleasure incident to driving a flexible car, the driver does not have to shift his gears, throw out his clutch or apply the brakes as often as in a non-Katalized car. This saves wear and tear on the machinery as well as the driver's nerves. [Image of a cylinder head] FIRST: We scrape the cylin-der head spaces mechanically clean and smooth and chemically treat them to receive the Katalite coating. THEN: The surfaces thus prepared are brush coated with Katalite which, after drying, is thoroughly baked on. It seems almost too simple to be true, that this coating of KATALITE should produce such remarkable improvement in perform-ance and economy. But it is strange yet that in twenty-five years of automotive research engineers seem to have overlooked the fact that the force which drives a motor vehicle is not the motor, the transmission, the axles or the carburetor—but a chemical reaction. Everything that has 6 A NEW AUTOMOTIVE DEVELOPMENT You pay enough for gasoline—Why not use all of it? The United States Bureau of Standards, after a prolonged investiga-tion of gasoline automobiles and trucks, finds that almost without exception the gasoline engine wastes an enormous percentage of its fuel. Every automotive engineer knows this, and since the start of the industry millions and millions of dollars have been spent in trying to eliminate at least part of this waste. The results have been meager in the extreme, because the only improvements have been purely mechanical. It has apparently been overlooked that the source of motive power is a chemical reaction—the combustion of gasoline. The first man to improve the chemical structure of the engine is Dr. Edward Sokal, electro chemist and automotive engineer. After exhaustive researches at the University of Michigan Dr. Sokal developed the proper catalytic agent for accelerating the combustion of motor fuel. It is called KATALITE. WHAT IS KATALITE? Combustion is speeded up by Katalite. KATALITE is a recently discovered “catalyst” or “catalytic agent.” According to the Handbook of Chemistry and Physics, Eighth Edition, 1920-21: “A catalytic agent is a substance which by its mere presence alters the velocity of a reaction, and may be recovered unaltered in nature or amount at the end of the reaction.” KATALITE is a catalytic agent “which by its mere presence” in the combustion chamber of a gasoline motor “alters the velocity of the re-action” (explosion) without itself being affected in “nature or amount.” In other words, KATALITE speeds up the explosion of the gasoline-air mixture, making the combustion more complete. If the explosion is quicker, it is obviously more efficient. The more complete the combustion—the less carbon left unconsumed. All we claim for KATALITE is that it will greatly speed up the combustion and burn more of the charge than anything yet developed. But simple as it sounds the results are amazing in actual practice. Perfected Performance through complete combustion. 3 | ||
From the Rolls-Royce experimental archive: a quarter of a million communications from Rolls-Royce, 1906 to 1960's. Documents from the Sir Henry Royce Memorial Foundation (SHRMF).