Now we are talking!! Innovative and (relatively) inexpensive way to increase fuel efficiency and cut CO2 emissions?! Sign me up!!
According to this startup company called Transonic Combustion, they created a way to make conventional engines at least 50% more fuel efficient!! Sign me up!!
been such a long time since I read about supercritical fluids. Not sure what it would take to get gasoline into a supercritical fluid state and what that means in terms of its properties. The video seems to state that it allows for more efficient burning process so that some of the energy wasted as heat will now be used to push the piston down.
Anyway, seems interesting and from what they say, we should start seeing production automobiles with this technology within 5 years. Will see about that. Cant wait to see what the performance would be like and what the trade-offs are.
I always get a little skeptical about these things since so many times it is just some ploy to get government funding for continued ‘research and development’. However, if they are getting funded by couple of auto manufacturers, then that’s cool.
Does anyone know what kinds of pressure and temperature you would need to put gasoline into a supercritical fluid state? How would various mixtures of gasoline (not all gas is the same) affect it being able to be in this state? What kind of energy would it take?
I sure don’t know…