I was speaking with Jim miller, and was saying that you add the ring to the stainless, its like a thermocouple in nature. It just extracts electrons from water creating electricity. When i first stumbled upon this I added that ring to the cell for LOOKS because I thought it looked cool. I was very shocked by what adding that ring to the outter SS tube caused!!! This is new stuff. The amount I added was small, but maybe a bigger change could lead to even bigger results.
I'm not sure that ring is aluminum, I will research it, and try and figure out how to test it to be aluminum, Its pretty and shinny, perhaps it has a coating on it?