He said he believed his liquid air engine would prevail against other storage technologies because it did not rely on potentially scarce materials for batteries.

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To get to them, the company teamed with Porsche to build a liquid-cooled engine.

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Previous attempts to make an engine with liquid pistons have foundered for the obvious reason that liquids are less stable than solids.

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From the development of the jet engine and liquid crystal displays, from cracking the inner workings of DNA to pioneering work on Lithium-ion batteries, the country has all too often managed to break new scientific ground but then fail to capitalise on the vast potential that others then enjoy.

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Fazle Hussain and Michael Goldshtik, of the University of Houston, in Texas, have taken this thinking much further, and built (with the help of their students) a prototype of an engine with a liquid piston.

ECONOMIST: An engine made of water

The top half would use the liquid-fuelled core-stage technology and engine that powers the Ariane 5.

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This new Harley has a liquid-cooled V-twin 1, 130cc engine, developed with Porsche, that runs at 115hp.

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The physics of a spray dryer are like that of a diesel engine's fuel injector in that it atomizes liquid (insulin or gasoline) into droplets.

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The liquid bio-methane produced by this process can be used in an existing LNG engine.

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