What ever happened to the McMaster Rotary Engine?

Solar Fields, like First Solar Inc., is an outgrowth of solar-energy ventures of Toledo industrialist and glass-manufacturing pioneer Harold McMaster.

Since the 1940s, McMaster was sketching and tinkering with models, continuously reworking various designs for what has since become the McMaster Rotary Engine (MRE). His son Ronald started working on the project in the 1970s, and brother Robert joined in after the sale of Solar Cells Inc. in 1999. The engine is shaped like a drum with the same circumference as a basketball, and is claimed to:

• Weigh only one-tenth as much as a current six-cylinder engine
• Have only two moving parts other than a ball valve; eight parts total
• function under water or deep in space

Unlike the Wankel rotary, which has a heavy rotor, the MRE rotor is light wobble plate, promising greater efficiency. In addition to the two-cycle basketball model, work is continuing on a two-cycle engine about the size of a coffee-can that could be built into wheel hubs, and a four-cycle gasoline version, as well as an engine based on a two-part fuel system utilizing gaseous hydrogen and oxygen.

There was a Toledoan, Ron McMaster, who boasted of developing a cheap device to turn any auto into a hydrogen-assisted vehicle. The HyOxy generator was supposed to be a revolutionary technology:

http://www.toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20031016/NEWS24/110160140

However, I have not heard much on it since then. Also, City Paper had a story last summer on alternative fuels, but the deal to install the HyOxy on delivery vans of Ken's Flowers fell through.

Anyone else heare more about HyOxy?

Or is this just, as a friend of mine at UT suggested, a bunch of smoke and mirrors to entice investors?

Inside the wooden housing whirred equipment its creators say could increase automobile fuel efficiency by 20 to 40 percent, and reduce polluting emissions by as much as 90 percent.

The device is the HyOxy Gas Generator - equipment that can turn any car or truck into a hydrogen fuel-assisted vehicle, its developers say.

In fact, 20 trucks soon will road-test the engine add-on, including one from Toledo-area Ken's Flowers. HyOxy's developer, McMaster Energy Enterprises, expects to market the equipment early next year.

Mr. Taft visited the Dorr Street plant yesterday afternoon.

The steps to market appear a lot fewer for the HyOxy generator. First, it has to lose its cabin cruiser-appropriate housing and move into a trim plastic box.

Then it needs road testing.

“We need to know what 50,000 miles of jiggle does to it,'' Dr. Johnston said.

Ron McMaster, the principal innovator for McMaster Energy's HyOxy generator, said their first target was the large diesel engine market. Diesel engines face strict new emission standards in 2007. This could meet and exceed those standards.

The system includes an extra alternator to create the energy to split water into hydrogen and oxygen. How the hydrogen-oxygen mix creates such fuel economies, Dr. McMaster said he is not really sure.

"A lot of research themes could be attached to this: We don't know why it does why it does. But that doesn't really matter to us. Just so it works."

With a vision of a hydrogen-powered world, McMaster Energy Enterprises of Toledo hopes to capture the emerging hydrogen fuel market. The company has developed a device known as the HyOxy Gas generator, which can convert any existing gasoline-powered car or truck into a hybrid hydrogen-gasoline vehicle. Located on Dorr Street, the firm is beginning to experience significant interest in the apparatus, according to company president Norman Johnston.

The McMaster Cosmology Colloquium is named after the late Harold McMaster, who formed McMaster Energy Enterprises in Toledo.

Norm Johnston is CEO and one of three partners in ADG. A Perrysburg, Ohio resident, he has been one of the primary forces in transforming northwest Ohio from its “Rust Belt” roots to a potential “Green Belt” powerhouse. In addition to his role with ADG, Johnston is President and CEO of McMaster Energy Enterprises, an area leader in developing alternative energy initiatives. While solar applications are McMaster Energy’s focus, Johnston’s advocacy extends to all forms of alternative energy.