"It's not right that one generation should use up most of the world's resources during their lifetime. So, the more we can do to alleviate that the better."
- Peter Dearman, inventor of the Dearman engine
Working with Ricardo, E4tech, MIRA and leading UK academic and research institutions, the Dearman Engine Company Limited is developing a novel, zero emission, piston engine that runs on a common industrial product, liquid air (or liquid nitrogen); the exhaust is cold air.
Benefits of the technology include:
- Simple and likely to be cheap to build, exploiting large parts of the existing powertrain supply chain;
- Requiring low maintenance and suffering no capability degradation over its lifetime;
- Low environmental impact - zero tail pipe emissions and low well-to-wheel and embedded GHG emissions;
- Speed of refuelling (similar to petrol or diesel);
- Established fuel distribution network to support field trials and first deployment;
- Ability to harness the waste heat of the coolant loop; and its ability to work alongside other WHR systems;
- Ability to deliver motive power and cold.
With our engineering and commercial teams, we have defined three groups of applications for the technology:
(i) Combined Power and Cooling
a cost-effective zero-emission combined power and cooling solution (applicable to mobile refrigeration, combined air conditioning and auxiliarry power units).
Refrigeration currently accounts for ~20% of a chilled delivery vehicle's diesel consumption.
(ii) Waste Heat Recovery
a very high yield low-grade heat energy recovery system; to be integrated with an internal combustion engine (or fuel cell); this could in practice increase overall fuel efficiency by more than 25%.
(iii) Zero Emission Engine
a stand-alone zero emission engine (ZEE) exhausting cold air for static and mobile usage; for city vehicles and highly relevant for multi-billion dollar global on-and off-highway applications, including industrial (e.g. fork-lift trucks), mining, inland waterways applications, the built environment, as well as opportunities in emerging markets for urban vehicles e.g. tuk-tuks and quadricycles)