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A reader writes:

I was wondering if you have come across “Water Ion Technologies” before. My skills tend towards electronics or I.T., and about the most interesting thing I ever did with chemicals probably wasn’t that good for me at the time. I know you’re not really a chemical science site, although, in fairness, you seem to derive some small amounts of schadenfreude from debunking some of the more obvious pseudoscience shysters that inhabit the ‘net. God knows I do when you do it.

So… Should I be super excited about what they’re saying, or do I need to take more of those chemicals before their vision will fit into my reality?

Richard

Usually, purveyors of magic water at least somewhat restrict their claims.

Usually, it’s good for what ails you. Either it’s treated with magnets or dual overhead quantum recipulating sprines, or it’s just some mildly alkaline spring water that the seller declares to be Water Of Gladness or whatever. And away they go selling the stuff, come what may.

Or perhaps it’s not of medical value, but you can run your car on it.

Or it’s not water at all, but separated hydrogen and oxygen that for ill-described reasons has properties far more useful than the hydrogen and oxygen dealt with by boring old scientists.

Water Ion Technologies seem to have opted for “all of the above”.

Their main discovery, you see, is a mystic substance called “SG Gas“, which is not H₂O but “O-HH”, and has a long list of properties that’ll pretty much overturn the entirety of molecular chemistry if they turn out to be real.

(The Water Ion Technologies “science” page also, according to ancient psychoceramic tradition, rambles on about the patents they’ve applied for, as if having a patent on something means that the thing works.)

But wait! If you “infuse” water with SG Gas, you get “Ultra-Pure Polarized Water“, also known as the “AquaNew” product Aqua Cura “Watt-Ahh”, which combines at least five forms of pseudoscience to provide 100% of your daily requirements of whatever the hell it is they’re talking about.

(Actual scientists may find the Watt-Ahh “Studies” page particularly entertaining. Watt-Ahh doesn’t have anything but water in it, oxyhydrogen doesn’t kill cells, capacitance testing somehow proves they’re really making “clustered water”, now suddenly their nothing-but-water product is supposed to kill germs although that’s not actually what they did with it to reach this conclusion, and now, surprise, it’s a treatment for autism! And good for cut flowers. And on it goes.)

If this were the first miracle hydrogen-oxygen gas, or the first miracle water, promoted with a well-tossed salad of quantum flapdoodle, crackpot physics and claims about “hydration”, “cellular communication”, “detoxification”, and so on, then I might be inclined to give them slightly longer shrift. Heck, they’ve even got one study done by a real scientist at a real university… using their own odd in-vitro protocol. But c’mon, it beats the heck out of the tests in which they forget to tell you the results.

The thing is, though, that mysterious hydrogen-oxygen gases are a long-term crank favourite. Often described as “HHO” or “Brown’s Gas”, they’re forever allowing people to get a thousand miles per gallon or burn the gas to get back more energy than they used making it, except when some tiresome empiricist shows up and tries to actually test these claims.

And as for magic water, well, your one-stop shop for an overview of the surprisingly large number of magic-water products out there is “H₂O dot con“. Their page about water cluster quackery goes into claims like the “Watt-Ahh” ones in some detail; Watt-Ahh has its own little entry on the depressingly long list of similar products and devices.

Could this stuff be real? Sure, insofar as the claims made for it are even physically possible.

Since this is another potentially world-changing product that’s mysteriously being sold piecemeal to individual consumers rather than turning into a multi-billion-dollar business, though, I see no reason to give it any more credence than any of the many, many, many other products in the same market sector.

A reader writes:

I’ve read all your various fuel-additive debunking pieces, and while I’m assuming that this is Just One More Of The Same, I would like your opinion:

http://www.ecofuelsaver.com/

Big, flashy web page. Graphics and embedded videos. And not only testimonials, but actual Lab Results!!!

The How It Works web page sounds awfully dodgy to me, though, and the FAQ page makes me even more skeptical. On the other hand, they go to great lengths to differentiate themselves from being just another engine cleaner, and give myriad details about how to properly do testing so you can see the results for yourself. Also, the information given in their “EPA & CARB certified Lab Results” page is big on scientific rigor, discussing the need for consistent baseline runs and blind testing so the driving habits do not affect the outcome. (Of course, it could all be made-up hooey, but that’s the chance we take.)

Point is, they sound good. And the product is being sold by Canadian Tire, a very large Canadian retail outlet.

(Canadian Tire is an institution in Canada. They are a Wal-Mart like store, but have been around for some 90 years. For 50 years have a ’store loyalty’ program called Canadian Tire money, where some small percentage of your purchase is refunded to you in Canadian Tire Money. This ‘money’ is of *very* high quality; it is, in fact, better (better paper and ink, stronger security measures) than the national currency of some countries I have travelled. It is gladly accepted by charities, frequently given in larger denominations as wedding gifts, and is often used as a sort of alternate currency, trading at par among friends or even friendly strangers. Thus endeth the lesson.)

Anyway, since Canadian Tire is endorsing the stuff, I expect that many folks are going to be trying it. I know you have seen many scams of this nature, so I beseech you to train your skeptical and knowledgeable eyes on this potential snake-oil from the Great White North.

Shane

Yeah, here we go again.

This outfit does indeed have a better spiel than most fuel-additive sellers, but there on their How It Works page is the usual claptrap about raising octane rating.

Raising a fuel’s octane rating above what an engine’s compression ratio and ignition timing requires will, for an absolute certainty, do nothing at all, and certainly not improve an “incomplete burn”, a concept which the Eco Fuel Saver people also share with dozens, if not hundreds, of other fuel-additive companies.

Modern engines all burn very very nearly all of the fuel, or else they fail emission testing and/or set the catalytic converter on fire.

And on it goes, blah blah blah, and then there are those nifty PDF test datasheets you mentioned - which are, once again, of a quality well above the norm for these outfits, and not even from California Environmental Engineering!

This post has been sitting on my to-do pile for rather a while; when I first replied to Shane I observed that the “Gasoline” test-results document said that the tests were done in 2006. And here we were, years later, and this hundred-billion-dollar product was still being sold over the counter to individual motorists. On account, perhaps, of a Conspiracy.

Now they’ve got documents from 2011 on the lab-results page, though, and all they say is that their additive doesn’t ruin the fuel, and in fact changes it in almost no way at all. Then, puzzled, you might try their “Results” page instead, but all you’ll find there is a list of variably plausible excuses for the additive doing nothing noticeable. But don’t be fooled - Eco Fuel Saver will “increase BTU, octane and lubricity in your fuel”, so never mind our own PDF test results that proudly indicate an octane change, for instance, of less than half of one per cent, and the fact that even a large octane increase makes no difference unless your current fuel is causing knock or making your fancy computer-controlled engine retard its spark; just clap your hands, children, and wait for Tinkerbell.

I could dig further into this, but it’s like investigating every new prophecy of the end of the world or dude who reckons he’s channelling a million-year-old alien, yet is mysteriously unable to even tell you pi to ten significant digits, let alone anything of scientific interest that millions of human high-schoolers don’t already know.

It’s up to the makers of all of these products to demonstrate the value of their incredibly valuable, if true, claims. It’s not up to us to sort through the numerous claimants and their countless claims to see whether perhaps, this time, the magical mileage elixir or perpetual-motion machine is real.

The fact that Canadian Tire sell this product indicates, I think, that Canadian Tire reckon people will buy it. Similarly, Wal-Mart sells those magical “Power Balance” wrist bands (and several similar products, not to mention a particularly spiffy-looking magical engine potion).

And just about every pharmacy sells homeopathic remedies (as does Walmart!). And so on, and so forth.