Center for Advanced BioEnergy Research, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Thursday, June 16, 2011

Diesel-gasoline hybrid engine in the works at Chrysler

Biodiesel Magazine
By Luke Geiver June 15, 2011

The Chrysler minivan’s engine may look, or at least act, a lot different by 2013. Argonne National Laboratory is trying to combine the positive elements of the gasoline engine and the diesel engine for use in such vehicles as Chrysler’s popular Town and Country minivan. Steve Ciatti, a mechanical engineer at Argonne, is leading a team that is attempting to construct and test a hybrid engine that will employ the properties of the diesel engine, mainly the ability of the diesel engine to use compressed air without a spark to ignite the fuel into energy. Argonne isn’t alone in the effort to bridge the properties of the diesel and gasoline engines. The U.S. DOE is partaking in the effort, along with partners Chrysler, Delphi, FEV and the Ohio State University.

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