MIT researchers developing an on-demand ethanol injection system
According to Reuters, a group of researchers at Massachusetts Institute of Technology are working on what they think is a more logical ethanol solution for our impending fuel crisis. Instead of using ethanol as a primary fuel or an additive, we could potentially see more realistic fuel-saving improvements across a wider spectrum if we implemented a system on cars that injected ethanol in small quantities when the engine is under heavy load.The idea is to run a smaller, more fuel-efficient engine in your car while maximizing the usage of the higher octane ethanol so as to not impede performance. The group estimates gas mileage improvements of about 20 to 30 percent and Daniel Cohn, senior research scientist at MIT, says that adding the ethanol injection system would roughly add $1,000 to a vehicle, considerably undercutting the premium for a gas-electric hybrid.
It seems like a novel use of ethanol, since the renewable fuel's limited supply is often the first argument used against its sustainability. The source article is rather short, though. When discussing how the system works, they only state that it would be used on a turbocharged ICE and that the ethanol would be injected when knock is likely to occur. They don't discuss the turbo in any level of detail, but one might consider that it may make sense to incorporate a system that would advance the timing and increase the boost pressure when the ethanol is in use like that of Saab's biopower system. As for the amount of ethanol required, Cohn doesn't offer an estimate, but says that it would only have to be refilled about every three months.
[Source: Reuters via ABC News]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Mike Z. 8:53PM (10/25/2006)
Interesting idea, but couldn't a similar system use high octane gasoline? If there were a way to not destroy the catalytic converter such a system might get much higher MPG if the injector used 120 octane leaded gasoline.
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Jake 8:20AM (10/26/2006)
It's crucial that the internal combustion engine, whether it's gasoline or advanced diesel, is improved to the point where those improvements are meaningful.
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Glenn 8:31AM (10/26/2006)
General Motors proposed nearly exactly this system in the early 1950's with the LeSabre show/concept car, which had a very high compression 215 cubic inch V8 using gasoline in one tank, and ethanol (on demand) in the other.
The reason such a program WILL work in real life instead of "just running 120 octane gasoline" is because 120 octane is not needed at all times - it is far more efficient to use 87 octane fuel under low load and boost the octane with approx. 130 octane ethanol ONLY WHEN NEEDED.
Then, a far smaller displacement engine than normal can be used (and the boost/ethanol only utilized on an as-needed basis).
This COMBINED with hybrid drive (let's say a 660cc Prius instead of 1500cc, but adding turbo, intercooler and on-demand ethanol injection) would provide massively impressive MPG, possibly in the order of 130 MPG (with the next generation Prius, which Toyota states will obtain 100 MPG).
Back when GM was at their zenith, 1962, Oldsmobile offered a Buick-built 215 cubic inch alloy V8 with turbocharger and on-demand ethanol injection.
Nothing new under the sun?
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Derek 9:01AM (10/26/2006)
Leaded gas? Gag. There are high octane gasoline blends out there that do not rely on lead to avoid poisoning the world more than nessacary.
Besides, under load and especially in a boosted engine, ethanol presents some very nice advantages. Besides the high octane we all know about, ethanol also readily vaporizes and absorbs a fair amount of energy doing it. Translation - it cools your intake charge. Basically a chemical intercooler. I've read of bracket racers running ethanol reporting that their intake manifold is cool to the touch.
Ethanol-on-demand in sasy a 15:1 n/a engine or maybe a 12:1 boosted engine could be pretty sweet, and fill up on 87 octane most of the time. Only problem I see is what happens if you run out of ethanol on the road? Better have some good computer controlls...
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Glenn 9:54AM (10/26/2006)
Quite right. If a bi-fuel system were used and the Ethanol ran out - you might be in a better position than my Prius running out of gasoline (I have maybe a mile to go and the batteries are then depleted).
BUT computer controls would curtail power in a huge way - like cruising power and enough power to "accumulate speed" but not accelerate hard. 0-60 in 30 seconds or more, maybe? Thus, a car would be essentially in limp-home mode (or more to the point limp-to-an-ethanol pump mode).
And obviously a yellow or red warning light and perhaps "beeper" would have to alert the less intelligent driver to the lack-of-power so the dimwits didn't try pulling out in front of a semi with 50hp on tap instead of 150.
Alternately to keep such idiots from suing, the car manufacturers could simply shut the engine off since it had run out of one of two essential fuels....
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ksmith 10:52AM (10/26/2006)
Not to nit-pick, but the Olds Turbo Jetfire engine used methanol instead of ethanol. I think there would have been one-to-many people putting more shine, I mean ethanol, in their bellies than in their cars. Still a pretty neat idea. Those engines ran some pretty high compression ratios back in the day.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oldsmobile_V8_engine#Turbo_Jetfire
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Roger 2:50PM (10/26/2006)
Alternative fuels for an automobile are certainly becoming increasingly important as time goes on. Eventually, we are bound to run out of fossil fuel on this planet, as there is a finite amount to pump from underground. Additionally, the rate at which we use it up will be increasing, especially since China is just beginning its rapid expansion in the use of cars. Also, the way things have been going in recent years, the carbon dioxide released from burning fossil fuel, fuel that has been buried for millions of years underground, is causing “the greenhouse effect” to be of major concern because of the global warming it causes. Clearly, the polar ice caps are melting at an increasingly alarming rate, and not as much of the water is re-freezing in the “winter months” (depending on the pole). If we don’t do something about it soon, like within about 20 years, we will find our cities on the coasts buried under water. Also, as I understand it, the warming of the oceans will cause quite dramatic shifts in weather patterns, meaning more hurricanes and stormy weather. I’m not writing this for the purpose of extolling gloom and doom, but rather to point out that we human beings in the near future need to be altering our ways of burning such large amounts of fossil fuel. We need to ramp-up the development of new technology and methods to power our cars and to be less reliant on cars in general. Of course public transportation helps, but we need to develop the technology and efficiency of using alternative sources of energy soon. In my opinion, ethanol is an important component of the bridge needed to get us to the use of hydrogen cells, and beyond, to power our vehicles. The beauty of burning ethanol, being that it comes from the fermentation of vegetative sources such as corn, wood pulp, and many other plant sources, in effect recycles the carbon dioxide present in our atmosphere. Plants use it to grow in the process of photosynthesis. Brazil uses almost exclusively ethanol that is derived from sugarcane grown there.
Here in the U.S. and elsewhere, the auto makers are producing more and more cars that will run on “E85” fuel, composed of 85% ethanol and 15% gasoline. Gasohol (10% ethanol) has been a good start, but E85 is even better in my opinion. Vehicles that will run on either gasoline or E85 are called “flex-fuel vehicles” (FFVs). In the latest issue of the leading consumer magazine is a front-page article about what they deem, “the ethanol myth”. They came to the conclusion that it is disadvantageous to run a FFV vehicle on E85 fuel instead of gasoline. Both the fuel economy and acceleration of the 2007 SUV tested dropped when running on E85 compared with gasoline.
From this, it seems apparent to me that the U.S. needs to catch up to Sweden, General Motor's Saab in particular. Running on E85, the Saab 9-5 "BioPower" Turbo model delivers a significant 20 percent increase in maximum power and 16 percent more torque while emitting 80% less CO2 into the environment compared to running it on gasoline. Running E85 compared to gasoline takes about a second off the 0-60 mph time, and there is a 15 percent gain in fuel economy on the open road where fuel-enrichment for engine cooling is no longer necessary when a vehicle is run on ethanol. The 9-5 BioPower has taken the Swedish market by storm this year, outselling its full-year 2006 sales target in just four months. Sweden has a long cultural and political tradition of respect for the environment, and this is reflected in Saab's achievements of the pioneering of asbestos-free brake linings and the removal of CFCs from air conditioning systems, and now Saab’s Trionic 7 BioPower engines. I remember back in 1973, when the oil embargo hit and additional "smog control" devices (i.e., the EGR valve and air pump) were required on new cars, their performance declined significantly. Many people at the time, including mechanics and engineers, thought the performance and efficiency of cars had been dealt a lethal blow. This is when I bought my first Saab, a 99 EMS. Saab, with the development of the "lambda sond" oxygen sensor (keeps the correct stoichiometric ratio of 14.5 to 1 in the air-fuel mixture) in 1976 along with electronic fuel injection, required no such smog control devices. It was the beginning of electronics-to-the-rescue for car performance. This technology, along with concern for safety and functionality, enamored me with the cars. I was impressed that they did this because they wanted to, as opposed to doing it because they had to. Seemingly at odds with one another, performance and fuel economy were blended together in a practical and distinctive car.
So here we are, forty years later, and Saab is still leading the way in emissions and performance technology. All Saabs are turbocharged and have direct ignition, and the engine’s combustion process is very precisely controlled by a powerful 32-bit microprocessor controlled system called, "Trionic 7". This unit monitors the combustion process in each cylinder a million times per second for optimum efficiency. It precisely regulates the fuel-air mixture in each cylinder, the ignition timing, and the amount of turbo boost pressure allowed. And(!), very significantly, it automatically adjusts itself to any proportion of gasoline and ethanol.
How does Saab achieve higher performance using E85 compared to gasoline, you might ask? It stems from the octane rating of E85 being about 10% higher than that of gasoline. The Trionic system thus allows more advanced ignition timing, a higher compression ratio, and a higher turbo boost pressure, all of which increase the performance and efficiency of the engine.
There are two driving forces behind the adoption of a renewable and sustainable fuel such as “bioethanol” E85: The environmental need to combat climate change from the greenhouse effect and the strategic need to overcome dependency on oil, a finite resource for which global demand will exceed supply, not to mention the world tensions related to it’s procurement. Sweden plans on being free of dependency on oil by the year 2020. Let's hope that the same will be true of the U.S. It appears to me that General Motors, especially with Saab’s traditional engine know-how, is leading the way.
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MikeW 3:02PM (10/30/2006)
How about gasoline direct injection for use all the time?
Audi 3.1 liter V6, 12.5:1 compression ratio.
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Wilson McQueen 9:34AM (11/07/2006)
Can this man save the world?
What if there was an engine that could run on almost anything.
An engine that did not need any oil what so ever.
How about an engine that would actually clean the air as it worked.
An engine that never got hot and acted like an air cleaner as it created horse power.
Effectively the inventor of such a product would in fact be saving the world.
Diminishing Global Warming, saving the economy as well as reducing air pollution and our need for fossil fuels.
The man that invented such a great machine would indeed be saving the world.
This man is alive and well, his name is Harry Schoell and lives in Ft. Lauderdale, Fl.
Check out www.cyclonepower.com
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gr 12:39AM (11/11/2006)
What is the advantage of this vs. water injection ? It seems that the purpose is the same - to prevent knock and preignition under heavy load conditions. Design a small displacement engine, with a fairly high compression ratio and ability to modulate boost, and inject water when conditions call for it.
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