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Coffee-Powered Rover SD1 Breaks Speed Record

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How fast do you think a Rover powered by coffee beans can travel? 10 mph? 20 mpg? Well, I’m telling you, and you’ll see it in Bang Goes the Theory on BBC, it did 66.5 miles per hour, establishing a new world record (for its category – a waste-powered car).

We’ve been talking about this type of car in the past. Made by Martin Bacon and his team from the Teesdale Conservation Volunteers of Durham, UK, the old Rover SD1 broke a previous record of 47 mph held by a U.S. team with a car powered by wood tablets.

They first heat the coffee beans to very high temperatures, where they act like charcoal, emitting gases like carbon dioxide and water vapor. Then, these gases are reduced by hot carbon into carbon monoxide and hydrogen (which burns). A cyclone and a rock wool filter follow, and then the result is cooled by a radiator, fed into an engine’s cylinders and burned.

As I said earlier, you’ll be able to see what Martin Bacon’s team did in Bang Live in Manchester on Oct. 22 and 23. Send us a Youtube video if you attend, we probably won’t be there, but I bet it’ll be interesting.

[via ibtimes]

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