The Myth That Using Nitrogen Increases Fuel Economy

Nitrogen as an alternative to air when filling tires seems to be gaining some popularity. The fact that Costco and other retailers are now offering nitrogen fills certainly points to nitrogen filled tires as becoming more mainstream. At almost $10 per tire does it really save fuel like it is claimed to do? Here are some answers.

Let's start with the most basic principle of all. Take a deep breath. Now let it out. You realize that the breath you took was 78% nitrogen. I'll bet you couldn't tell. Therein lies the biggest problem with the theory that nitrogen is better than air. Air is already 78% nitrogen!

A major claim made by nitrogen advocates is that nitrogen is a larger molecule and will permeate through the tire slower than oxygen. By slowing the seepage out of the tire, nitrogen will allow you to maintain the proper pressure in the tire longer.

This supposition is false. You merely need to know something about physics to realize this. The rate a gas can permeate through a porous substance depends on the mass and the size of it's molecules. Oxygen and nitrogen are literally the same size. As far as the mass or weight is concerned, nitrogen is actually lighter than oxygen. If a gas is going to escape through the tire the nitrogen would do so faster.

Think about this for a minute. If oxygen actually permeated out of a tire faster than nitrogen, then as the tire deflated what would be left in the tire would be mostly nitrogen. Let's say there was 90% nitrogen left in the tire.

You then go to the station and top your tires off with air to bring them back to the proper pressure. Now you have almost all nitrogen in the tire that you added a small amount of air to. At that point you would have much less oxygen in the tire than you did when you first inflated it.

Continuing this train of thought, if the nitrogen does continue to behave the same way, the smaller amount of oxygen now in the tire escapes from the tire and the nitrogen that remains behind becomes even more concentrated. Maybe you now have 95% nitrogen in your tires. As you continually repeat this process many times, you continue to get higher and higher concentrations of nitrogen in your tires. Eventually you will end up with only nitrogen.

Based on the claim that oxygen would leave the tire faster, you would end up with nitrogen filled tires while filling them with air. If this were the case then what would be the point of filling your tires with nitrogen to begin with?

This is just a common sense answer as to why the claims of nitrogen being a significant factor in reducing gas consumption just don't hold up. There many more specific scientific answers as to why the nitrogen claims are false. Most of them are way to complicated to try and explain in one short article. In the end it seems you are seeing the one law of physics that seems to manifest itself over and over.

Once again there are those who take advantage of a problem to make a profit. To whom is there an advantage to filling tires up with nitrogen? The companies selling the nitrogen producing equipment and the retailers who sell the nitrogen itself. They make more profits. Who comes out with the short end of the stick? That' right, it's you and me.

Article Source: http://www.christiannotepad.com

Scott Siegel is the author of a 143 page manual of industry insider information on saving gas and money at the pump (beatthegaspump.com). Visit us to learn how you can get better gas mileage. Find out how to increase gas mileage.
Get your own completely unique content version of this article.