Internal combustion engine and method of operating an internal combustion engine
AssigneeWater 2 Hydrogen (IP) Party Ltd
InventorShaun T. Rigney
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A method of operating an internal combustion engine having at least one combustion chamber and an actuator disposed therein being arranged to drive an output shaft of the engine, the method comprising: 5 (i) injecting a water containing fuel into the combustion chamber; (ii) flash boiling the water-containing fuel to form water vapour within the combustion chamber; (iii) thermolyzing the water vapour to form hydrogen gas and oxygen gas; and (iv) combusting the hydrogen gas to drive the actuator within the combustion chamber to 10 thereby drive the connected output shaft of the combustion engine.
Claims19
A method of operating an internal combustion engine having at least one combustion chamber and an actuator disposed therein being arranged to drive an output shaft of the engine, the method comprising:
- (i) generating supercritical water from a water feed stream;
- (ii) injecting the supercritical water into a combustion chamber;
- (iii) flash boiling the supercritical water to form water vapour within the combustion chamber;
- (iv) injecting and igniting an organic fuel into the combustion chamber to generate a flame front of at least 1,800° C. to initiate thermolysis of the water vapour to form hydrogen gas and oxygen gas in the combustion chamber;
- and
- (v) autoigniting the hydrogen gas within the combustion chamber to drive the actuator which drives the output shaft of the combustion engine.
An internal combustion engine that generates energy from water, comprising:
- an actuator disposed within a combustion chamber, and connected to an output shaft;
- a fuel tank to contain water;
- a pump and a heat exchanger to generate supercritical water from the water;
- a combustion chamber;
- at least one fuel injector adapted to separately inject the supercritical water and an organic fuel into the combustion chamber, wherein flash boiling the supercritical water forms water vapour and the ignition of organic fuel generates a flame front of at least 1,800° C. to initiate thermolysis of the water vapour into hydrogen gas and oxygen gas in the combustion chamber, and wherein the hydrogen gas autoignites in the combustion chamber to drive the actuator which drives the output shaft.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.