A researcher at Argonne National Laboratory has a slippery idea about how to improve auto gas mileage: add some eyedrops to your motor oil.

Ali Erdemir, senior scientist in Argonne’s Energy Systems Division, has spent much of his career investigating the slick properties of boric acid, an antiseptic ingredient in eye medications that Erdemir says could increase a car’s gas mileage by at least 5 percent.
Erdemir said such a solution would be an additive to motor oil.

“Just pour it in the crankcase,” Erdemir said. “That’s how we perceive this to be used in the future.”

One of Erdemir’s additives already is on the market, called “Motor Silk.” The engine treatment costs $35 for a 16 ounce bottle, according to the company’s Web site. The company, Advanced Lubrication Technologies, claims the product reduces fuel consumption by about 5 percent.

Such a small increase in gas mileage may sound unimpressive to someone with a car that gets 20 mpg — the car might get 21 mpg after pouring Erdemir’s additive in the car’s crankcase.

But Erdemir said millions of individual drivers adding it to their engines could make a difference. Erdemir said his technology, which coats engine parts with a solution thinner than one-thousandth the width of a human hair, could have startling results.

“In a given day, we consume so many millions of barrels of oil, and if you can reduce that number by even 1 percent, that will have a huge economic impact,” Erdemir said.
Erdemir patented boric acid in 1995 as an additive to hydraulic lubricants.

“He was just sprinkling boric acid onto surfaces,” said George Fenske, a colleague who works with Erdemir.

Erdemir worked on making it thinner, pushed by the dream of a perfectly frictionless material.

Engines have many moving parts, many of them metals that grind against each other and need oil to smooth the way. An engine with no friction would save 10 to 15 percent on fuel consumption, Erdemir said.

“Smearing these nanoparticles on metal surfaces is getting close to that,” he said.
Someday soon Erdemir’s nanoboric acid solution will be available as a motor oil additive, he said.

“We have several patents on this technology and we are working with companies at the moment to scale this up so that it will become commercially available,” Erdemir said.