Material handling equipment to benefit from Cyclone engine

Founded in 1998, Combilift builds and sells industrial material handling equipment, including specialised lifts and multi-directional side loaders.

Robert Moffett, president of Combilift, said: ’Facility owners are in desperate need of cleaner-burning, more fuel-efficient and more powerful materials handling equipment for indoor use. We believe that the Cyclone engine can provide just that perfect combination of power and clean energy efficiency.’

Invented by company founder and chief executive officer Harry Schoell, the patented Cyclone engine is a modern steam engine designed to achieve high thermal efficiencies through a compact heat-regenerative process, and to run on virtually any fuel — including bio-diesels, syngas or solar.

In the Cyclone engine, fuel is atomised and injected into a centrifugal combustion chamber, where a spark ignites the fuel-air mixture into a flame that spins around heat coils. Water contained in the coils becomes super-heated steam, which is then piped to six radial-configured cylinders under pressures up to 3,200lb/in² to push the pistons in the cylinder down in sequence.

The rotating action of the pistons connected through a bearing turns a crankshaft. Steam escapes from the cylinders through exhaust ports and enters a condensing unit where it turns back into water and collects in a sealed pan at the bottom of the condenser.

Air that has been pre-heated from the condensing unit continues up to a second heat exchanger located in the exhaust port of the combustion chamber, further pre-heating the air used for combustion while also cooling the exhaust fumes.

A high-pressure pump pipes water from a collecting pan to the heat coils via heat exchangers surrounding each of the cylinders and then to the centre of the coils to start the heat cycle again.