There's still life in the old combustion engine: Meet the Argon Power Cycle
Combustion engines, both internal (diesel and gasoline) or external (steam), have long been the drivers of the modern world as we know it. However, environmental concerns about harmful CO2 and nitrogen oxide emissions have transformed this fossil fuel-driven engine into a suspect legacy, often mentioned in the same breath as coal-fired power stations. It explains why many researchers working on sustainable power generation want to look beyond combustion as a means of producing energy.
Jeroen, why do you believe it's too early to write off the combustion engine?
We at TU/e strongly believe that we can revolutionize the combustion engine for the 21st century. To achieve this, we are exploring a number of clean revisions for the combustion engine. One promising avenue is the argon power cycle (APC). APC is a groundbreaking technology, which uses argon instead of air as the working fluid. Combine that with hydrogen as your fuel, and you have the potential for a highly efficient machine, that is not only emission-free, but can also help store green energy from solar and wind.
Air consists to 1 percent of argon. It is therefore the cheapest and most widely used noble gas. In this photo we see a vial of glowing ultrapure argon. Credit: Eindhoven University of Technology