Running on Air

ELISE MUNRO

Age 12 | Port Hood, NS

Edited by Kellyn Hanson & Emily Lind

INTRODUCTION

After watching a documentary on climate change, I wanted to help with the world problem. There’s not a solid solution to reducing emissions from cars. Electric Vehicles are great, but it would take approximately 60,000 tons of lithium to build only one million of them (Hunt, T). Plus, how environmentally friendly is a car that runs on electricity produced by a coal plant? I wanted to create another solution, so I learned how an internal combustion engine works, then took apart my whipper snipper (also known as a weed eater, or grass cutter) and rebuilt it to try and make it run on compressed air.

The purpose of this project is to find an alternative to internal combustion engines. In order to significantly reduce our emissions, we need to find a way to make our cars and their engines even more eco-friendly.

MATERIALS

  • STIHL grass trimmer (mine was not working at the time)

  • Various types of screws

  • Rubber (Unsure of type, but thick and approximately 20cm squared)

  • Screwdriver (mine came with the grass trimmer)

  • ¼ inch hose - I used approx. 8ft

  • MAKITA driver, drill and bits

  • (x2) Neiko 31112 Air Blow Gun

  • Plastic (approximately 30cm or so)

  • Hose sealers

  • Sealing Teflon tape

  • Attachments for the hose

  • Adjustable wrench

PROCEDURE

Remove the outer shells, spark plug tube, magnet, carburetor, muffler, and pull cord receiver (that’s what I call it, there’s no actual name for that part) by unscrewing them. Then, seal up the intake valve. Wrap all the hose attachments with plumbers sealing tape. Next, create a custom cam and cut out and C shaped piece of plastic. Mount them and an air blow gun to the engine with screws. Attach ¼in hose to one end of the first air blow gun, from the other end of the first air blow gun to the second air blow gun, and from the other end of the second air blow gun to the air compressor.

RESULTS

The first time I tested my engine, the cam fired and did ½ a rotation, then shut off. When this happened, the air compressor was at 100 PSI (pounds per square inch). I noticed that the cam ended up in the same spot every time. The second time I tested my engine I increased the air pressure to approximately 120-125 PSI. The cam spun around approximately 7 times, then shut off again.

DISCUSSION

The engine worked for a few seconds. I know how to make it work, and I have incorporated that into my second design. This was the problem with the first design: The air was acting like a cushion, so there needed to be less resistance. Therefore, in my second design, I'm going to move the exhaust valve to the top and insert either a Y or a T shaped valve to where the spark plug used to be. There will then be two valves on top. This would solve the flaw in my first design. If my engine was to be developed and placed into tuk tuks, which are 3 wheeled cars that help make up 75-80% of Asia's traffic (Potera, 2004). it could significantly help reduce emissions in Asia, which produces 53% of the world’s emissions. I loved working on this project and will continue with it.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  • Munro, C.R. (personal communication)

  • Hawley, C. (personal communication)

REFERENCES

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  17. (2020, January 6). Is there enough lithium to maintain the growth of the lithium-ion battery market? Greentech Media. (Hunt, T)