Current combustion engines are unable to get the best performance out of ethanol and ethanol blends.  Ricardo Inc. has developed a new engine that uses Ethanol Boosted Direct Injection (EBDI), a process which improves ethanol performance.

Since ethanol has higher octane and higher heat of vaporization, Ricardo decided to create an engine that took advantage of both properties.  The EBDI engine optimizes both ethanol and gasoline performance.

Ricardo Inc President Dean Harlow gave this description of the engine:

We’ve moved past theoretical discussion and are busy applying renewable energy technology to the real world. The EBDI engine project is a great example because it turns the gasoline-ethanol equation upside down. It has the performance of diesel, at the cost of ethanol, and runs on ethanol, gasoline, or a blend of both.

Flex fuel engines currently lose about 30 percent performance when using E85.  Regular engines take a fuel economy hit when using gasoline blended with 10 percent ethanol meaning you get fewer miles per gallon.  As gasoline prices are moving up again, people are going to steer clear of ethanol blends.

Replacing regular engines with EBDI engines would see a jump in ethanol use.  Getting more gas mileage using a cleaner fuel made locally, is a dream come true for many.

Although most ethanol is currently made from corn, other ways of making ethanol are gaining popularity.  Using non-food crops like rapeseed, crambe, algae, camelina and jatropha to replace corn would provide more energy per crop.  For those who want ethanol to not interfere with crops at all, there is also cellulosic ethanol made from scrap lumber, construction waste and crop waste.

However the ethanol is made, the EBDI engine will turn it into a much more powerful fuel than gasoline.  If all cars were equipped with EBDI engines, people could continue to fuel up the way they normally do, with gasoline or a gas/ethanol blend and they could switch exclusively to ethanol as more ethanol production facilities come on line and ethanol becomes more plentiful.

Eventually, we could stop using gasoline at all and switch to ethanol.  It would be a home grown fuel that would decrease our reliance on oil from other countries.  On top of that, most countries could generate their own fuel for their citizens.  Of course that would probably lead to arguments over whose ethanol or method of making ethanol is the best.  Some things never change.

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Entry was posted on Tuesday, May 26th, 2009 at 6:24 pm under Auto, Green Technology.

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