Ethanol Again

Pa Joe

Pa Joe

Senior Member
I was at the local NAPA store the other day and I noticed a product there selling called Star Tron (an additive) that supposed to cure and prevent the problems that Ethanol causes. A little pricy at 15.00 for an 8oz. bottle but it treats 128 gallons of gas. Just wondering if anyone else used it. They do have a web site, www.startron.com
 
I sell star tron 8 oz by the case load for 7.00 a bottle, I have seen what ethanol does to rubber so if it is hogwash god bless them hogs
 
I looked at StarTron a year ago and was intrigued by the prominent label statement "ENZYME Fuel Treatment". Being semi-literate in bio-organic chemistry I was puzzled as to how an enzyme (a special type of protein that catalyzes reactions) would exist in a naptha environment without being denatured.

After vacuum evaporating the solvent and dispersing the residue in an aqueous base, I ran a simple Biuret test for presence of peptide bonds, which would indicate protein or enzyme content. NOTHING. ZIP. NADA. A follow-up repeat with Lowry protein assay protocol and a Bicinchoninic acid assay also did not detect anything that would even hint ENZYME.

Perhaps the one little bottle of blue liquid I purchased was a fluke? Likely not.
The MSDS (LINK) shows the base as 95+% naptha (lighter fluid) and less than 0.5% "Proprietary Organic Compounds" which could theoretically also include some type of voodoo enzyme. If it does, it exists at less than 0.5ppm in the bottle I had.
 
I read mikes reply no doubt he is very sharp. Since i sell star tron i copied and pasted it to star tron here is there reply.



Dear Allen,

I am impressed. I had one of our tech people answer below. While you seem to question our product, my question is have you really tried the product ? or are you just doing to be a cynic ?????? Suggestion, take the worst running lawn mower or engine you have. Start engine and while running pour some Startron in tank. Watch it run smother and more powerful in minutes.

Here is Matt’s reply.

Dear Unknown Biochemist: What? No SDS-PAGE with a silver stain? C'mon.... use the good stuff!

When my Dad bought me my first hobby chemistry set, I grew silicate crystals and made smoke bombs. If this is a hobby for you, you have a heck of home lab. I gather you are either a biochem student at a college, or you work in the biochem industry. However, I don't think you have a lot of knowledge about the interface between biochemistry and petroleum chemistry. Your statement that "an enzyme" (meaning any or all enzymes) would denature in our naphtha-based petroleum distillate is incorrect. Its the exact comment made by some fuel additive competitors still mired in 1950 petroleum chemistry. In-situ Biocatalysts in petroleum fuels first appear in literature in 1959, with patents by the Oil industry starting in 1962. Extracellular enzymes became quite the experimental rage in the 1980's and early 1990's, and those enzymes would easily be picked up with your assays. Mostly, biochemists were pursuing the Holy Grail of eliminating sulfur which involved reducing the hydrocarbons. Funding faded away as it was too expensive, it consumed useful hydrocarbons and cost potential energy, and oil dropped to about $15 a barrel. We aren't looking to reduce energy content or destabilize fuel, so we don't use a large quantity of reducing or oxidizing enzymes. As you noted, the level is extremely small. We just want to "nudge" a few electrons here and there, change some surface tension, make some very minor changes in fuel chemistry. We do not want to tear the fuel molecules apart. If you study the literature, of which there is an enormous amount of work on enzymatic reduction of hydrocarbons, and particularly, the work on water clusters and proteins in water cages in non-polar solvents, you will find science that might give you some insight into our technology. You will have to understand that we can't share with you any more than that. This is a proprietary technology in a very competitive industry.
 
Pa Joe said:
I was at the local NAPA store the other day and I noticed a product there selling called Star Tron (an additive) that supposed to cure and prevent the problems that Ethanol causes. A little pricy at 15.00 for an 8oz. bottle but it treats 128 gallons of gas. Just wondering if anyone else used it. They do have a web site, www.startron.com
Click to expand...

Pa Joe ......................
Just use non-ethanol gasoline !
Here is where you buy it.
http://pure-gas.org/index.jsp
MIKE :)
 
Allen, Thanks for forwarding to StarTron for a reply! I hope you're making a ton of money (Model A's are a $ pit). Nothing personal, but I am not yet convinced.

I'll make a few comments based on Matt's reply to you:

"Dear Allen,
I am impressed. I had one of our tech people answer below. While you seem to question our product, my question is have you really tried the product ? or are you just doing to be a cynic ?????? Suggestion, take the worst running lawn mower or engine you have. Start engine and while running pour some Startron in tank. Watch it run smother and more powerful in minutes."
You'll get the same result from many other naptha based fuel additives. I cannot attribute this to any secret, proprietary enzyme. What Matt proposes is a wildly subjective, unscientific, uncontrolled experiment that does not relate to isolating the effect of "Enzyme" in StarTron on phase separated fuel mixes.

"Dear Unknown Biochemist: What? No SDS-PAGE with a silver stain? C'mon.... use the good stuff!"
Had I known your "enzyme" existed at less than 0.000001%, then yes, I could have run electrophoresis to ID the molecular weight in KD's (kilodaltons for the casual readers) against a few known markers run in adjacent lanes. (How I hate acrylamide dust! Pour your own jells???) Silver stain? Maybe to see if anything is there on an initial jel, but that's so yesterday. Once you find something, you want to make it quantitative. Staining with AgNO3 gives a rather primative indication in that regard.

However, I don't think you have a lot of knowledge about the interface between biochemistry and petroleum chemistry.
True. petrochem is not my end of the organics spectrum.

As you noted, the level is extremely small. We just want to "nudge" a few electrons here and there, change some surface tension, make some very minor changes in fuel chemistry.
WOW! Sounds like the battle cry of a homeopath- the more you dilute it the better it works! So, if you only want to nudge a few electrons, you are depending on your "enzyme" to break down at some point, as a single molecule will catalyze endlessly. Lowering the dilution will only extend the time frame to interact with every fuel cluster that fits the substrate. Gee, if you dilute it 10 to the minus 24th, only five bottles in a dozen have a chance of containing even a single molecule. I guess I got one of the other seven?

You will have to understand that we can't share with you any more than that. This is a proprietary technology in a very competitive industry.
Matt, Kudos for sharing as much as you did. Of course, if any foole (like me) actually saw value in your claimed proprietary secret ingredient (enzyme?) it would be a straightforward matter to start by cutting out isolated constituents of your mix from the gel, determining the A.A. sequence, then running over to RasMol (peanut gallery- look it up) and modeling it for all to see and produce. I might have to do a bit of x-ray diffraction crystallography to get the final conformation physical structure correct (peanut gallery- the active shape of the molecule) but it is routine and straightforward.

If there was any real market share visible in StarTron, irrespective of proven functionality, the above WILL happen, and any claims of patent or "proprietary" will be out the window by flipping a non-essential R- group or two. I hope it doesn't get too competitive for you!
 
MikeK : I feel really really dumb right now after reading all of that but I would put my money on you being right and them being full of it.
 
Wow! What a a fun exchange to read--for a retired biochem teacher. Mike's scepticisim is reasonable: Isolating most enzymes by dissolving them in an organic solvent is a surefire way to kill it. But, there are also membrane-bound enzymes that live their lives at the oil/water interface that would be destroyed by extraction into water. In either case the purified enzyme's structure would be like scrambled eggs compared to the original stuff (and x-ray crystallography would not be very helpful). I think there's a chance that the commercial product's claim is legit--enzyme additives have been made to work in hot aqueous detergent solutions, which any biochem teacher would tell you would never work!

I wonder what reaction the alleged enzyme catalyzes--probably oxidation of ethanol to acetaldehyde, I would guess, but that's a rather nasty chemical that might do damage itself, although of a totally different nature than ethanol. Whatever, I'm surprised that the EPA lets you get away with trashing their hard-fought for additive, but what do I know? Interesting stuff.

Steve
 
MikeK - That may have been the most interesting scientific write-up I have read since college and when we would insert random song titles into them to see if the prof's were reading them or not. I'm with you on this one.
 
Wow, I'm glad I posted this thread. I'm blown away with the technical or should I say chemical replys. Like Mr Tube, I'm feeling a little stupid right now. Fl&Wv Mike, there are no non -ethanol stations in my area. Western Pa
 
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