用咖啡豆驱动的路虎速度破世界纪录

It’s not just aroma – British engineers built a car that runs entirely on coffee beans and broke the world speed record for a car powered by organic waste。

Earlier this month a modified Rover SD1 averaged 66.5mph at the Elvington Race Track near York, smashing the previous record of 47mph achieved by a US team that built a car fuelled by wood pellets。

Engineer Martin Bacon, with Volunteers of Durham, stripped out the old car and refitted it with a gasifier and filters, which turns waste coffee granules into energy to drive the engine。

The car is not the first to be powered by coffee, though. Mr Bacon and his team based the design of the Rover on a coffee-powered Volkswagen Sirocco built for BBC’s science show Bang Goes The Theory。

That car was driven from London to Manchester in March last year and straight into the Guinness Book of Records, as no car powered by waste material had ever travelled that distance before。

Bang Goes The Theory presenter Jem Stansfield explained that the cars demonstrate a genuine alternative to powering engines using fossil fuels。

He says: "It’s like an old charcoal burner. The coffee is heated up like charcoal. Then the combustion gases, which are generally carbon dioxide and water vapour, are reduced by hot carbon to carbon monoxide and hydrogen. This is then filtered by a cyclone filter and a rock wool filter and cooled down by a radiator."

据英国《每日邮报》9月26日报道，英国工程师制造了一辆完全依靠咖啡豆为动力的汽车，该车不仅芳香扑鼻，还打破了以有机废料为驱动的汽车的世界速度记录。

本月早些时候在约克附近的艾文顿赛道，一辆经改装的路虎SD1(咖啡豆动力汽车)以平均每小时66.5英里的速度打破世界纪录。此前，该记录由美国制造的内置木屑颗粒燃料汽车保持，时速为47英里每小时。

工程师马丁•培根和杜克大学的志愿者，将一辆旧车进行了拆分，并用气化炉和过滤器对其进行重装，将咖啡豆废渣变成能量驱动发动机。

然而这辆汽车却不是第一辆以咖啡为驱动力的汽车。培根和他的团队是基于英国广播公司(BBC)的科学节目“爆炸云理论”中大众热风罗孚的一款以咖啡为动力的汽车所设计的。

去年三月这辆车从伦敦驶到曼彻斯特就直入吉尼斯世界纪录，此前还没有以废料为动力的汽车行驶过这么远的距离。

“爆炸云理论”栏目的主持人詹姆•史坦斯费尔德解释说，这种汽车展示的是一个真正能替代化石燃料的可选择引擎动力。

他说：“这就像古老的木炭燃烧器，咖啡在这里就像木炭一样被加热。然后这种一般为二氧化碳和水蒸气的燃烧气体，会被热碳转化成一氧化碳和氢气 ，然后经旋风过滤器和棉岩的过滤，最后经散热器冷却。