Submersible Robot Diesel Recycles Its Exhaust

An Anonymous Coward writes: "This might be a good weekend topic to kick around. Trends in Japan has a short article on an undersea robot that uses a contained diesel. 'The engine itself is a completely closed system that needs no intake of air to run and chemically processes exhaust gas inside the robot. On-board devices reinfuse the exhaust with oxygen after removing its carbon dioxide and reuse the gas in the fuel mixture. The seawater is kept clean, as no gas is released.' Any /.'s working with this tech? Can it be applied to low emission vehicles?"

Comments

More Fuel Consumption = More emission

[disc-chord]

Can it be applied to low emission vehicles

Eventually... maybe, forseeably... no.

This little robot cannot possibly be consuming as much fuel as your 2 ton car. Now if we can make your 2 ton car consume as much as the little robot, we're in business...

Not so fast.

[small_dick]

I expect that whatever oxygenator they are using on the exhaust may be extremely expensive to implement on POVs.

It could be a catalyst, for example, that costs big $$ to make, and could be toxic and expensive to displose of when finished.

There's no magic here. In the past I've been a huge fan of EVs, but am disolusioned by the slow rate at which battery energy density has improved, especially considering the toxicity and expense of the new materials -- even compared to lead.

Slowly, I'm warming up to the hybrids. Something must be done to cut down on fossil fuel usage.

Re:Very nice.

[Bradee-oh!]

I know it's off topic from the underwater diesel, but superchargers are on many more cars than just new Mercedes motors. Turbochargers are out there, as well. One will never replace the other, no matter what the price difference gets to be. As you pointed out, some prefer superchargers because they don't have the lag characteristics of turbos, but there's also a preferences for turbos since superchargers are belt driven and therefore parasitic on the motor, whereas turbos merely use waste exhaust anyway.
Also, there have been a number of successes in turbocharging systems that cut the lag to virtually zero, namely twin-turbo systems. The best such success that comes to mind being the twin-turbo Toyota Supra of the mid-90's, these systems utilize a small turbo that spins up faster with almost no lag, and a larger turbo which takes longer to spin up, but provides more power than the small turbo once it does.

I agree with your comment of surprise about the lack of gearheads (or at least wannabe gearheads) amongst slashdotters. ;) Just to letcha all know who didn't already, engines are growing so dependant on computers that a common upgrade is to swap out the engine management chip with one that gives more aggressive valve timing and fuel mapping (at the expensive of fuel economy, of course) that can bump the output by 10 or 20% or more. On the note of turbochargers, turbocharged engines usually respond to these chip upgrades AMAZINGLY well since the computer can also control the boost characteristics of the turbo.

After all, whats the point of having an overclocked, Linux powered mp3 player in your ride if it's a stock Dodge Neon or Toyota Corolla that has so much potential under the hood that can be "overclocked" itself? :)

the Swedish Navy

[europrobe]

We've got Air Independent Propulsion on some of our subs in the Swedish Navy... (well, as some of you would point out, it's only independent for a period of time.) The trick is to use liquid O2 and a diesel burner to drive a Stirling engine, and use enough pressure during combustion to be able to feed the exhaust out into the water. Since it's mostly CO2 it dissolves quickly. For the burner to get "air-like" oxidizer the O2 is mixed with a small back feed of reused exhaust. There is a more thorough explanation on Kockums website.

This is not as clean as the drone in the original article, but OTOH, the collected exhaust in the drone has to be disposed of somewhere - it's not gonna disappear just because it's not in the atmosphere.