Unique Products Promise Superior Performance With Sustainability 

With a background in Wall Street and experience running a couple of companies, Rand Taylor said he was cautious about getting involved when a friend approached him about a unique fuel additive. But when he saw what the product could do, he changed his mind. The fuel additive had originally been invented for the military, to provide optimum fuel performance under tough combat field conditions. 

Taylor wound up as the CEO and founder of a company to market the additive for civilian uses—Industrial Sustainability Group (ISG), which specializes “in super powerful products for the industrial world that also are eco-friendly,” according to its website.  

Taylor recruited his son Alec to help him run the company. The company has since expanded to 12 employees, and its product roster has expanded to include lubricants and other products. 

Fuel Catalyst

The company’s original and signature patented product is Fuel Ox, a fuel combustion catalyst that helps fuel burn more efficiently. Taylor said the formula includes micro-particles of metal that break up the fuel and enable more efficient and complete burning, at lower temperatures than are usually required to burn fuel efficiently—at about 600 degrees in a diesel engine rather than the usual 900 degrees.

“Better fuel efficiency translates into better mileage,” he said. More thorough combustion, even at lower temperatures, means less soot. Lower temperatures generally mean more soot, but the increased combustion time makes up for the lower starting temperature.

Ceramic Filters

For truckers, the lower soot has important savings implications, said Taylor.  Truck engines have ceramic filters called Diesel Particulate Filters behind the manifold that catch soot. They are now included in all new marine engines and gen sets as well. Periodically the soot must be burned off the DPFs in regeneration cycles that require revving the engine; the regen cycles can take from a half-hour to an hour. “Regens are the bane of the trucking industry,” Taylor said, but neglecting them can be costly. The filters are expensive; to replace them could cost anywhere from $3,000 to $10,000. But using FuelOx additive greatly reduces the regen cycles, according to reports from truckers. 

Fuel Ox can help towing vessels with fuel efficiency also, Taylor said. An early marine customer has been McAllister Towing, an East Coast tugboat operator that has reported a 6 percent increase in fuel efficiency since adopting FuelOx. Better fuel efficiency also reduces emissions. As newer marine engines replace older ones, “the marine guys will experience what the truckers are experiencing now,” Taylor said.

Lab Tests

Another signature Fuel Ox product recently added to its lineup is its plant-based Infinity Lube, invented by Howard Damron. According to ISG, Infinity Lube has been shown by Falex Labs in Chicago to “outperform the best greases on the planet by over 500 percent.” Taylor said comparative tests of bearings using Infinity Lube vs. standard lubricant greases under National Lubricating Grease Institute standards show a metal loss of only 1.6 milligrams, versus the normal range of 12 to 15 milligrams. 

“We stopped the wear almost completely,” Taylor said. He claims the unique formula actually hardens the interior metal surfaces, using the heat generated during friction to “case-harden” them. “Infinity Lube products are more of a metal treatment than a traditional lubricant.”

Barge Sled Bearings

Gary Gills, safety director at McGinnis Inc., confirms that the product has certainly worked for them. The sleds McGinnis uses to move barges on and off the water have 24 lubricated bearings. “Before we added [Infinity Lube] we were replacing maybe two bearings a month,” Gills said. “We went from greasing the equipment twice a week to once a month. And it doesn’t leave a sheen, either..”

Les Lore, construction superintendent at McGinnis who has been with the company since 1985, said, “We used to pick up slivers of shavings from the rails of the barge sleds 10 inches long all the time. As soon as we applied Infinity Lube, that stopped.” 

Lore said when they were initially approached with information about what Infinity Lube could do, their response was to test it themselves. Today he is a convert. “We were losing those bearings pretty frequently, and [since switching to the product] we haven’t lost one in years.” 

He and others at McGinnis spent between five and six years, he said, testing various uses of Infinity Lube. “We added it to gearboxes, boom hoist assemblies and gear worm shafts in Manitowoc cranes. It certainly made believers out of our guys. When they saw what it could do with our equipment at work, they were asking for sample sizes of it to take home to add to their lawnmowers and put in their trucks.” Lore said he used it in his own truck’s engine and noticed fuel savings immediately. 

“The rail usage impressed me, but it was the engine usage that sold me,” Lore said. “It’s really an amazing product. I’ve never seen anything like it.”