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Engines power nearly everything we do, from getting us around in cars and aircraft to supplying our electricity in generators. So when a company comes along who is creating an engine with up to 10X the power of today’s engines (or up to 10X smaller with the same power), we take notice.
Founded by MIT grad Alec Shkolnik, LiquidPiston is revolutionizing engines in a way that hasn’t been done in more than 100 years, the company says.
While combustion engines have marginally improved over the years, they’ve operated on the same thermodynamics since the 19th century. Shkolnik and his team conceptualized and patented a new thermodynamic cycle, paving the way for an engine design that can deliver up to 10X the power density of piston engines with fewer moving parts.
Already they’re solving major problems for the military with millions of dollars in contract awards pouring in, the company says. And Entrepreneur readers now have an exclusive opportunity to invest. Here’s what makes investing in LiquidPiston such a historic opportunity.
A breakthrough 100 years in the making.
The internal combustion engine was invented more than a century ago. Since then, the industry has been relatively slow to innovate in terms of specific power (power-to-weight) and power density (power-to-volume). One attempt at making a smaller, more powerful engine came in the 1950s with the Wankel – a model you’ll find in many Mazdas starting in the late 1960s.
Though the Wankel was a revolutionary engine, it presented problems related to cooling and efficiency. LiquidPiston’s X-Engine™ literally turns the Wankel inside out to overcome these issues and more. While the Wankel is a triangular rotor inside peanut-shaped housing, the X-Engine features a peanut-shaped rotor housed in a triangular shape for better fuel-air mixing and combustion.
Even more innovation driving the engine’s design comes from LiquidPiston’s breakthrough thinking around thermodynamics – and they have patented their own thermodynamic cycle – the High Efficiency Hybrid Cycle (HEHC) to deliver higher fuel efficiency over that of traditional Otto and Atkinson cycles by up to 30%.
Lighter, smaller, and more fuel-efficient, the X-Engine is poised to revolutionize propulsion in several industries, starting with the military.
Why LiquidPiston earned $30M from the US Dept. of Defense.
LiquidPiston’s innovation is such a game-changer, the US Department of Defense is already one of their biggest partners. They’ve earned more than $30 million in contracts from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the Army, and the Air Force to innovate everything from drones to generators.
For example, one contract is for building and demonstrating a new engine, while another is to hybrid-electrify the Army’s fleet of drones for longer flight duration. In fact, by using LiquidPiston’s engine, drones can fly 2X farther and can be launched with a smaller crew.
This is proof that LiquidPiston’s innovation is filling a clear need for some of the biggest players on the planet, but their growth potential is all ahead of them, the company says. The addressable market for more efficient propulsion is virtually limitless, which is why investors should start paying attention to this company sooner than later.
The $400B engine market opportunity.
LiquidPiston is out to disrupt the entire global market for mobile power – including drones, urban air transport (like flying taxis), hybrid cars, and more.
Shkolnik has assembled a squad of passionate engineers who’ve built state-of-the-art labs and facilities more than 15 years to develop and test their ideas, and their results so far are merely the tip of the iceberg, they say.
Take hybrid cars for example. Demand for hybrids is expected to 4x by the end of the decade. By using LiquidPiston’s technology, hybrid cars can use an 80% smaller battery. That’s a huge solution when miners struggle to keep up with the growing demand for lithium.
Or take carbon-free fuel sources like hydrogen. Companies like Toyota are already researching hydrogen as a future automotive fuel source. And LiquidPiston has already proved their engine can run on hydrogen fuel.
With so much future market potential, this is truly a ground floor opportunity for readers like you to invest.
