Engine that runs on heat "ready for commercialization"

A small company in Arizona that's been working on its stirling engine-like product for 10 years says it's now ready for commercialization.

Deluge of Phoenix has a hydraulic engine design that has now been patented in nearly 40 countries worldwide, it says.

The Natural Energy Engine™ (or N.E. Engine, aka "Any Engine"), turns low amounts of heat energy from solar, geothermal or any other heat source, including waste heat from existing processes, into mechanical energy that can drive electric generators or physical processes virtually silently, the company says.

Applications include generating electricity from waste industrial heat, desalinating or purifying water, pumping liquids such as water or oil, compressing gas, or performing most of the same work done by today’s other engine technologies at significantly lower cost.

Depending on the application, fuel costs can range from low to zero, the company says.

“It’s really not all that complicated,” said inventor Brian Hageman. “The engine converts low-grade heat, about the temperature of hot water from your tap, into mechanical work.”

“It is a thermal hydraulic engine. It uses the same principles of expansion and contraction from heat as a thermometer, and uses the expansion to create powerful hydraulic pressure in a manner similar to an automobile’s brakes.”

The U.S. Department of Energy’s Rocky Mountain Oil Testing Center in Wyoming tested a prototype to successfully pump crude oil from underground formations using geothermal energy as the sole source of heat for operation, awarding Deluge a Federal Laboratories Consortium’s 2005 Outstanding Technology Development Award.

Deluge has now conducted a multi-engine test in the field in Kansas, and completed over 100,000 hours of continuous operation over 15 months, the company claimed.

Deluge is focused on expanding the utilization of the engine in a wide variety of applications, and is seeking partners.

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