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> Startup Working to Commercialize Direct Injection Ethanol Boosting + > Turbocharging
> 25 October 2006
> Ebs1
> Ethanol boost with turbocharging promises a cost-effective means to obtain
> high fuel efficiency in gasoline and flex ethanol/gasoline powered engines. >
> MIT scientists and engineers earlier this year founded a company?Ethanol
> Boosting Systems, LLC (EBS)?to commercialize their work on direct-injection
> ethanol boosting combined with aggressive turbocharging in a gasoline engine.
> (Earlier post.) The result is a gasoline engine with the fuel efficiency of
> current hybrids or turbodiesels?up to 30% better than a conventional gasoline
> engine?but at lower cost.
>
> EBS has a collaborative R&D agreement with Ford, and anticipates engine tests
> in 2007 with subsequent licensing to Ford and other automakers. If all goes
> as expected, vehicles with the new engine could be on the road by 2011. >
> The foundation of the approach is the enhanced knock suppression resulting
> from the separate, direct injection of small amounts of ethanol into the
> cylinder in addition to the main gasoline fuel charge.
>
> Efforts to improve the efficiency of the conventional spark-ignition (SI)
> gasoline engine have been stymied by a barrier known as the knock limit.
> Changes that would have made the engine far more efficient would have caused
> knock (spontaneous combustion).
>
> The injection of a small amount of ethanol into the hot combustion chamber
> cools the fuel charge and makes spontaneous combustion much less likely.
> According to a simulation developed by the MIT group, with ethanol injection
> the engine won¹t knock even when the pressure inside the cylinder is three
> times higher than that in a conventional SI engine. Engine tests by
> collaborators at Ford Motor Company produced results consistent with the
> model¹s predictions.