Ammonia jar @ intake air?

I was talking to a guy that puts a soda can size of ammonia in his air intake box to keep down the accumulation of creosote in the firebox during the off or idle cycle in his OWB. He said that it was from a tip from an "old timer" and that they used to do that in their old wood furnaces.
Ever heard of this? I did a search here and only came up with glass cleaning threads. I thought that ammonia was quite corrosive to steel itself.

Curious?

I suppose a spoonfull of castor oil also used to induce pregnancy as well.

I don't see how this could be effective. So much happens to the intake air, especially in a downdraft gasser, inside the boiler that I'd be surpised if the ammonia is in any way still intact post-combustion. Surely some chemist out there could prove it one way or another...

Ammonia that evaporates and is sucked in to the firebox will increase the PH of the vapor but from there forward I would have no Idea what, if any, reaction would eliminate creosote. It could neutralize the acids. Perhaps someone would know if there is some reaction when ammonia is superheated. Houshold ammonia is mostly water with a small amount of ammonium hydroxide. One could find that the can of ammonia would turn to water over time because the ammonium hydroxide is more volitile than water and would evaporate sooner.

Neither I nor most gasser operators on this forum seem to be suffering from creosote post combustion so hopefully, if the practice worked, it would reduce the creosote in the primary chamber.

This guy was running a P&M OWB that I was told that is was a gasser (it was deffinetly brand new) and I was asking him how it handled idling. The amonia thing he mentioned sparked my interest and I love to stumble on to "old time ways" that have been lost but can still be usefull in todays sometimes overly complicated solutions.

I'm curious about this also........ Someone needs to be the gunia pig. I don't have creosote problems either so someone else?

TS