August 8, 1997
Contact: Chris Smith
Public Information Officer
University of North Texas
(940) 565-4644
UNT unveils CooLN2Car: A car that runs on air
DENTON (UNT), Texas Air. Its life-sustaining property and fresh, abundant supply were taken for granted until the birth of the industrial age and its resulting offspring: the modern, smog-producing automobile. Today children learn early about car exhaust, air pollution and ozone alerts. Tomorrow they'll learn about how a prototype car, which ran on air instead of fossil fuel, reshaped their future.
On July 30, an interdisciplinary team of scientists from the University of North Texas presented CooLN2Car, a nitrogen-powered, zero-emissions vehicle, at the Cryogenic Materials Conference in Portland, Ore. On Monday, Aug. 18, at 2 p.m. (CDT), researchers will present a 30-minute public information briefing followed by a vehicle demonstration at UNT.
The radically new energy concept involves the use of a cryogenic heat engine to power a vehicle using either liquefied air or liquid nitrogen. CooLN2Car gets its power from the pressure released when "cooled" liquid nitrogen is heated by outside air and becomes a gas.
Liquefied air is produced by taking air from the atmosphere, cooling and compressing it. Liquid nitrogen is similarly produced using nitrogen gas. Because air consists of 78 percent nitrogen gas, liquefied air and liquid nitrogen have similar properties.
In order to run a cryogenic heat engine using liquefied air, the liquefied air is heated and expanded in much the same way as water when used to run a steam engine. However, an important difference is that pollution-emitting combustion is unnecessary for the heating process. Instead, heat already existing in the atmosphere is used. As a result, the exhaust consists solely of pure, clean, breathable air.
The concept of applying existing liquid-nitrogen technology to power an automobile was published by UNT's Dr. Carlos Ordonez in a 1996 American Journal of Physics article, "Cryogenic Heat Engine."
UNT's research was funded by a grant from the Texas Advanced Technology Program. Co-investigators of the project are: Dr. Ordonez of the physics department, Dr. Mitty Plummer of the department of engineering technology and Dr. Rick Reidy of the department of materials science. For more information, see the web site at: http://www.mtsc.unt.edu/CooLN2Car.html Also, see our news service site, which includes a color photo: http://www.unt.edu/pais/news/ Color prints are also available upon request.
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