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Using nitrogen as a way to save gas seems to be gaining some popularity. It is used as an alternative to air in filling tires . The simple fact that retailers such as Costco are now offering nitrogen for your tires certainly suggests that the notion is becoming more mainstream. Air is free. Nitrogen costs almost $10 per tire at many retailers. Is nitrogen worth the extra expense? Here are some answers. Let's start with the most basic principle of all. Take a deep breath. Now let it out. You realize that the breath you took was 78% nitrogen. I'll bet you couldn't tell. Therein lies the biggest problem with the theory that nitrogen is better than air. Air is already 78% nitrogen! The big claim made by nitrogen believers is that nitrogen will save gas by keeping your tires at the optimum pressure level. They suggest that nitrogen permeates from your tires slower than oxygen. The pressure loss of the tire is less over time because the nitrogen is staying in the tire longer. This supposition is false. You merely need to know something about physics to realize this. The rate a gas can permeate through a porous substance depends on the mass and the size of it's molecules. Oxygen and nitrogen are literally the same size. As far as the mass or weight is concerned, nitrogen is actually lighter than oxygen. If a gas is going to escape through the tire the nitrogen would do so faster. Think about this for a minute. If oxygen actually permeated out of a tire faster than nitrogen, then as the tire deflated what would be left in the tire would be mostly nitrogen. Let's say there was 90% nitrogen left in the tire. You then go to the station and top off your tires which are now filled with a high concentration of nitrogen. You add a small amount of air to the tire. Now you have much less oxygen in the tire than you did when you first inflated it. It has a much higher concentration of nitrogen. Continuing this scenario, as it is claimed, the oxygen continues to dissipate from the tire and the nitrogen remains behind. Now you have an even higher amount of nitrogen in your tire. Maybe 95%. As you repeat this process again and again your tire would eventually end up being full of only nitrogen. The question is, if eventually you would end up with nitrogen filled tires by just repeatedly filling them with air, why would you fill them with nitrogen to begin with and spend the more money? It just doesn't make sense. This is just a common sense answer as to why the claims of nitrogen being a significant factor in reducing gas consumption just don't hold up. There many more specific scientific answers as to why the nitrogen claims are false. Most of them are way to complicated to try and explain in one short article. In the end it seems you are seeing the one law of physics that seems to manifest itself over and over. As is generally the case there are those who always take advantage of some problem to make a profit. Who gets the benefit of filling your tires with nitrogen? Non other than the manufacturers of the nitrogen producing equipment and the merchants who sell the nitrogen to the public. They make more money. Who ends up paying for those extra profits? That' right, it's you.
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