PATENT
ISSUED FOR NEW ENGINE FUEL SAVING DEVICE
Dateline: MAY 13, 2002…Thousand
Oaks CA
Contact Name: Richard Proeschel
Contact Phone: 800-315-0084
Ext. 600 or 330-723-4469 ext 600
Contact Fax: 330-723-4469
Contact email:
raproe@proepowersystems.com
Contact website:
www.proepowersystems.com
MAY 13, 2002, Thousand Oaks, CA – The United States Patent Office has notified Proe Power Systems, an advanced engine research and development company, that U.S. patent #6,390,185 will be issued for Proe Power Systems’ Proe 90™ gas turbine recuperator on May 21, 2002. The Proe 90™ recuperator is a simple, easily manufactured device for recovering over 90% of an engine’s exhaust heat and returning it to the engine to greatly reduce fuel consumption and lower exhaust emissions. The invention promises to provide a low-cost challenger to fuel cells in the rapidly growing market for clean and efficient power production.
Richard Proeschel, Owner of Proe Power Systems, said that the Proe 90™ gas turbine recuperator, provides an improvement to existing recuperators now used by small gas turbine engines. He explained that these “microturbines” are rapidly gaining worldwide acceptance for producing power and heat for vehicles and buildings. Nevertheless, that acceptance is handicapped because a key component, the recuperator, is difficult to make and can account for up to 1/3 of the initial cost.
Proeschel considers the Proe 90™ recuperator a breakthrough because it can be made from commercially available materials with no special tooling. “It could be built in any shop that can rebuild an automobile engine,” he said. “Proe Power Systems has already built a manufacturing demonstrator of the main assembly using only a bandsaw and a lathe. Even with that equipment, the critical dimensions can easily be met.”
As well as the Proe 90™ recuperator works with microturbines, its real strength comes by combining it with Proe Power Systems’ previously patented Afterburning Ericsson Cycle Engine. Proe Power Systems claims their Afterburning Ericsson Cycle Engine/Proe 90™ recuperator combination has 2/3 the fuel consumption of a corresponding microturbine along with a similar reduction in emissions. Furthermore, being a piston engine instead of a turbine, the Afterburning Ericsson Cycle Engine can also be built in an automotive machine shop.
Proe Power Systems’ website, www.proepowersystems.com, states that the low fuel consumption and clean exhaust of the Afterburning Ericsson Cycle Engine is even competitive with fuel cells when using gasoline, natural gas or other commonly available fuels. Proeschel should know -- he supervised Rockwell International’s (now Boeing’s) Space Shuttle Fuel Cell group during the Space Shuttle development program.
Proe Power Systems’ innovations could be significant. As Proeschel says, “The Proe 90™ recuperator and Afterburning Ericsson Cycle Engine now give smaller manufacturers low-cost competition against the big guys and their expensive microturbines or fuel cells.”