Worlds Smallest Petrol Engine fits your watch, runs for years

mini-petrol-engineIf you thought batteries are greener Technology for tomorrow, let us raise the curtain over a Internal combustion engine that runs on Petrol and is more efficient that any other electrical equivalent.

Scientists have built the world’s  smallest petrol engine that is tiny enough to power a Watch.

The mini-combustion engine can run for two years on a single dose of a light fuel.

To give you an estimate of the power, it produces 700 times more energy than a conventional battery despite having a size less than a centimetre long . If the technology continues to innovate with the same pace, it could be used to power laptops and mobile phones for months.

Energy evangelists believe that this new mini-motor can make batteries look conventional and even phase them out in half decade.

The engine has been produced by engineers at the University of Birmingham.

“We are looking at an industrial revolution happening in peoples’ pockets. The breakthrough is an enormous step forward. Devices which need re- charging or new batteries are a problem but in six years will be a thing of the past.”

These tiny engines would find applications in other fields such as medical, military gadgets, and future robots.

Today, charging an ordinary battery to deliver one unit of energy involves putting 2,000 units into it. This is due to the fact that energy is wated at several steps before it is effectively stored. On the contrary this engine produces energy locally,  and hence  is far more efficient.

Micro engines have been produced several times in the past, but all of them failed at dissipating heat to surroundings, and burned themselves over a small period of operation. The Birmingham team overcame this by using heat-resistant materials such as ceramic and silicon carbide. They brought together all the engineering disciplines, both materials, chemical engineering, civil engineering, and mechanical engineering.

We’re excited about this more than Bloom Energy,  a new Energy revolution.

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Worlds Smallest Petrol Engine fits your watch, runs for years, 8.7 out of 10 based on 30 ratings

17 thoughts on “Worlds Smallest Petrol Engine fits your watch, runs for years”

  1. very interesting, though with new technologies I doubt this will catch on. I bet it gets more than comfortably hot, and combustion engines aren’t very efficient as it is.
    However, it does solve the problem of harsh chemical (lithium, lead, nickel-cadmium) waste batteries produce.

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  2. “They brought together all the engineering disciplines, both materials, chemical engineering, civil engineering, and mechanical engineering”….How Civil Engineering?

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    •  yeah, that’s a good question…how can Civil Engineering be any part of this?
      is this fake or not?!?
      I really want to know!!!

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  3. Please tell the battery giants this patent is not for sale and not to be hushed up.

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  4. “Today, charging an ordinary battery to deliver one unit of energy involves putting 2,000 units into it.”
    -Not by far. Ratio is in the regions of 1:5. Makes you doubt the rest of it…

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  5. I can see it now, in a distant future where fossil fuels have all but been burnt to nothing, the last few drops will let you update twitter, facebook, and take hundreds of photos of your cat and caption them to make them funny. Spritz your electronics to life, and oh emission standards must be nonexistent to an engine that runs for two years. This seems like an overhyped prank “innovation”.

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  6. It’s impossible! We did not get anywhere near the nano technology needed to build something, and I doubt that it can be so efficient as to work for 6 years with only one refill of fuel. Or is this alien technology, or in a few years my car will work with my urine.

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    • You’ve made a valid point.If word of this gets out, let’s hope for a campaign against such a monstrous attack on the Green’s efforts to get society off the use of hydrocarbons.

      Al Gore – are you listening?

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  7. This is really a very well written article. Thanks for sharing

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