Europe's Ricardo claims breakthrough in ethanol engine efficiency

Engineering firm Ricardo (LON:RCDO) today announced new technology that optimizes ethanol-fueled engines to a level of performance that it claims exceeds gasoline engine efficiency and approaches levels previously reached only by diesel engines.

The company's Ethanol Boosted Direct Injection, or EBDI, takes advantage of ethanol's best properties—higher octane and higher heat of vaporization—and achieves the performance of diesel, at the cost of a gas engine, and runs on ethanol, gasoline, or a blend of both, the company said.

Flex-fuel engines have been criticized for poor performance. Current flex-fuel engines pay a fuel economy penalty of about 30 percent compared to gasoline when operated on ethanol blends such as E85.

"EBDI can reduce the actual cost of transportation when compared to fossil fuels," said Rod Beazley, director of Ricardo's Gasoline Product Group.

"We can use a high level of turbocharging to achieve the high cylinder pressures that ethanol enables. Add in some other advanced technologies such as direct injection, variable valve timing, optimized ignition and advanced exhaust gas recirculation, and we're squeezing out more power than is possible with gasoline."

The prototype EBDI is a 3.2-liter V6 engine that ultimately could serve as a replacement for a large gasoline or turbo-diesel engine in a large SUV.

The first firing of the engine & initial development is currently taking place and will be installed into a dual-wheel pick-up truck demonstration vehicle later this year, the company said.

The project is a collaboration with Behr, Bosch, Delphi, Federal-Mogul, Grainger & Worrall and Honeywell, to further the advancement and commercialization of the EBDI project.

For almost a hundred years, Ricardo has been a independent provider of technology, innovation, engineering solutions and consulting to the world's automotive, military, transport and new energy industries, with technical centers and offices throughout Europe, the U.S. and Asia.

The company was up 3-percent, 6p to 198p, in late-day London trading.

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