Chennai: Perhaps only in India does a native technological innovation suffer suppression in an organised manner. After the IIT-Madras-developed CorDect wireless phone technology, Hydro Drive, apparently the worlds first pre-engine catalytic convertor, suffers a similar fate. The convertor was invented by S Gopalakrishnan, chairman and managing director of the Chennai-based Hydrodrive Systems and Controls. (See profile of S Gopalakrishnan)

And as it always happens, recognition for an Indian invention comes first from abroad. The Far Eastern Economic Review, a Hong Kong-based magazine, has selected this first-generation entrepreneur as the joint winner of the Asian Innovation Award 2001 for his invention.

Outwardly a simple cylindrical product with two wires dangling out and a small nozzle for fitting it to the fuel line, Hydro Drive is an automobile emission controller as well as fuel economiser for all vehicles running on petrol or diesel.

The unit works on principles based on various disciplines or fields of science like quantum physics, chemistry, fuel combustion, catalysis, electronics, microwave engineering, wave guide, plasma physics and linear accelerators. Finally it gets related to mechanical engineering internal combustion.

Even Sandia National Laboratories, US, on receipt of his paper for comments from the Society of Automotive Engineers, US, forwarded the same to US atomic energy authorities. The reason? The product principle is based on plasma physics and other science fields. "All laughed at me when I, in 1996, said electron excitations result in fuel properties. This was well before the Nobel Prize for physics and chemistry were awarded for a similar concept in 1998," Gopalakrishnan says.

He says Hydro Drives microwave heating enhances evaporation of the fuel by changing the ignition characteristics and energy levels of the fuel, thereby enhancing fuel combustion. This results in lower emissions and increased fuel efficiency. With the use of Hydro Drive, the vehicle avoids the use of enriched fuels mixture during engine cold start, and the engine performance in terms of smoothness is also improved.

"The melting of the waxes and the sulphur in diesel eliminates nozzle choking," he says. Given the kind of adulteration that goes in the vehicle fuel petrol/diesel this microwave catalytic convertor is really a refinery under the bonnet costing Rs 5,000.

Is Hydro Drive a destructive technology? Says Gopalakrishnan: "Not many will like this product. It will compete with additives, catalytic converters, fuel pump recalibrators, engine decarbonisors and others. Domestic oil companies can even avoid huge investments in setting up low sulphur diesel-processing plant at thousands of crore of rupees."

Tests done by the Metropolitan Transport Corporation, Chennai (the city transport corporation), the Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board, vehicle dealers and individuals have confirmed that fitting Hydro Drive brings down vehicular emissions at actual fuel/road conditions, at the same time improving mileage. While the equipment results in zero emissions in the case of new vehicles, old, heavy vehicles that spew dense smoke emit just what Euro I/II norms prescribes after running 2,000 kms, he says. "It should be borne in mind that vehicle manufacturers test emission compliance for their products using special/reference fuels ISO Octane for petrol engines and Cetane 55 for diesel."