Fuels Unite With Common Engine Technology

October 30, 2007 – Vol.12 No. 32

FUELS UNITE WITH COMMON ENGINE TECHNOLOGY

Oil edging towards a hundred dollars a barrel is a reminder of how uncertain the supply of crude has become. Over less than a century the world’s economies have mistakenly put all their hopes and dreams in one basket. That once seemingly secure basket of energy supplying, economy driving petroleum is falling apart.

The instability of oil is opening the doors for other fuels to enter the economy-energizing arena that could offer guaranteed supply forever. Hydrogen, for example, putting aside its many problems, offers remarkable rock solid supply stability despite its gaseous nature: It can be made with the help of nearly any source of energy on the planet, even beyond.

Yet while there may be a variety of fuels that could run the engines of the world, there aren’t many engines capable of running on a variety of fuels. A compression ignition diesel engine can run on cooking oil but it can’t run on ethanol. A spark-ignited gasoline engine can be modified to run on natural gas but once modified it can’t run on diesel fuel. Nor can either run on more than one fuel at a time.

With the exception of hybrids and some bifuel vehicles, vehicle and engine manufacturers like to stick to one fuel at a time and build engines to be fueled by one specific family of fuels.

That thinking might be set to change. Australian company Orbital Corporation Limited, an international developer of engine and related technologies, says that engines and fuel systems can be designed to run on a variety of fuels, even two or three different fuels at a time.

Simply put the words One Engine - Any Fuel are Orbital's description of its new Flex-Di (tm) fuel system technology. The company says it can now offer a fuel injection system that will run on a variety of fuels, including liquid and gaseous fuel at the same time.

The possibilities could be appealing for engine and vehicle manufacturers:

--- For alcohol fuels, such as nonfood sourced ethanol, Orbital’s new system would allow engines to run on 100 percent ethanol (E100) and eliminate the need for gasoline to be blended or injected to aid cold starting. Further, ethanol engines using Orbital’s system could have higher compression ratios for improved ethanol fuel economy, which is poor now.

--- With gaseous fuels, including compressed natural gas (CNG), the system will provide better fuel economy and overall performance.

--- With hydrogen as a fuel, Orbital’s Flex-Di would offer a number of significant improvements. The two-injector design allows water and hydrogen to be injected at the same time, controlling the fast-burning hydrogen to reduce NOx emissions while increasing the power output of the engine. Orbital says it can make hydrogen engines with the same or better power density as gasoline engines. And of course there’s no CO2.

--- The system would allow for multi-fuel engines that run on more than one fuel type, as well as bifuel engines that can switch between two fuels, or dual-fuel engines that can run on two (or more) different fuels simultaneously.

--- Heavy fuels can be used with the system as well. Kerosene and diesel fuel can be spark-ignited in both 2 and 4 cycle engines. Orbital cites special applications such as engines in snowmobiles and outboard motors as good applications for Flex-Di, operating on heavy fuels.

--- And of course gasoline need not be forgotten. The system would offer cleaner burning, more efficient, engines when operating on the conventional fuel.

We’ll be dependent on gasoline for some time to come, but if vehicle manufacturers start looking at engines that run on a variety of fuels, then the difficulties of migrating to new fuels might be lessened.

Links:

Flex-Di
http://www.flexdi.com

Orbital Corporation
http://www.orbitalcorp.com.au