3 Weird Things You Can Fuel Your Car With

With proposals being made by the UK government to ban the sale of new diesel and petrol cars across the country from 2040, car radiators specialist Advanced Radiators have taken a look at three weird things that you can fuel your car with as quirky alternatives:

Air

You may be puzzled about how air could possibly be turned into fuel, due to the fact that you can’t feel anything when going for a walk. However, pop your hand out of a window when travelling at 70mph and you will realise that we’re onto something.

The idea is to use compressed air as a fuel source. Indian car company Tata Motors has actually attempted this, whereby a tank that’s full of compressed carbon dioxide sprays out air when functioning. This air will drive a tiny piston engine, which results in a crankshaft being turned to drive the wheels of a lightweight car.

Algae

Algae may not look that appealing, but that smelly green pond substance is a very promising alternative fuel. There’s so much of it to be found in the sea too and it can also be grown in a tank very easily!

The idea is that algae can be used in order to create a variety of biofuels, with the oil that is harvested from algae cells being mixed together with other chemicals so to establish a source of biodiesel.

Coffee

So many of us enjoy a nice cup of coffee to wake ourselves up and get us alert. Why can’t the ingredients that make up the drink also be used to power our cars too?

Brit Martin Bacon seemed to share this thought, when he brought together a charcoal stove, a coffee bean byproduct and a modified gasoline engine that was able to run hydrogen. His invention was a system that used a boiler that transformed the coffee byproduct into a mixture of carbon monoxide and hydrogen, with the latter being fed into the motor. The result was a modified Ford P100 pick-up that was capable of hitting 65 miles per hour in tests.

 

Sources:

http://auto.howstuffworks.com/fuel-efficiency/alternative-fuels/5-alternative-fuel-ideas6.htm

http://auto.howstuffworks.com/fuel-efficiency/alternative-fuels/5-alternative-fuel-ideas10.htm

http://jalopnik.com/the-ten-weirdest-energy-sources-used-to-power-cars-1736563051

https://www.edmunds.com/car-technology/weirdest-types-of-car-fuel.html

http://jalopnik.com/the-ten-weirdest-energy-sources-used-to-power-cars-1736563051