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LONDON — A car with no emissions? The Dearman engine, powered by air, boasts just that.
Peter Dearman, 61, who lives in the country just outside of London, built a liquid-air powered engine in his vintage Vauxhall Nova. Though it's not the first engine to run on steam, Dearman has made the engine more efficient.
Using heat from the atmosphere and liquid air stored in a beer keg, the engine and antifreeze warm the liquid air to boiling, creating a high air pressure that drives the pistons, exhausting cold air.
"It's been done before in the past — many times, actually," Dearman told ABC News. "The secret to (my engine) is that once you warm the liquid air, you have to be able to keep it warm as it expands. If you let it cool, it shrinks and you lose all the efficiency."
Dearman believes his engine could be one of the most sustainable on the planet, since it doesn't use batteries or fossil fuel. It could also be manufactured cheaply with lightweight plastics.
Recently, Dearman took the car on a test run for ABC News, which reported the car drove at about 20 to 30 miles per hour for three miles, its limit.
Dearman, who has been tinkering and inventing in his garage for 40 years, began working on a prototype for the engine on a smaller scale using a lawn mower engine.
The Dearman Engine has caught the eye of the Queen Mary University of London and the University of Leeds, both of which are studying the engine.
The global engineering consultancy Ricardo said it "is likely to compete with hydrogen fuel cell and battery electric systems in zero emission applications." They are set to refine the design and hope to use the engine as the base for a gas-air hybrid engine.
