(Photo by Thomas Hobbs on Flickr)
Brazilian businesses and government agencies may be running on ethanol rather than gasoline if collaboration between Orbital Corporation Limited and Sygma Motors-Egneharia Industria E Comercio de Motors Ltda of Brazil comes to fruition. Orbital Corporation, an Australian engineering firm, is working with Brazilian-based Sygma Motors to produce flex-fuel engines for Vale Solutions in Energy (VSE). Sygma will work with VSE to produce Orbital’s FlexDI technology for commercial purposes.
VSE is the exclusive partner for the development and implementation of traditional engines in Sygma vehicles. Sygma will provide $1.1 million to Orbital to create a series of flex-fuel engines that can be installed or retrofitted into diesel trucks for delivery to VSE. This funding will be used to test out the FlexDI engine system and create a spark-ignited ethanol system that will be demonstrated to commercial customers in Brazil. The goal of the Orbital-Sygma collaboration is the retrofitting of traditional diesel engines to run on ethanol, an abundant resource in Brazil.
The Orbital FlexDI system is unique because it can be adjusted to handle multiple fuel types. Orbital and Sygma want to develop FlexDI so that vehicle manufacturers can switch out fuel lines for ethanol in favor of gasoline, hydrogen, CNG and other fuel sources based on customer demand. Orbital has also promoted the FlexDI as versatile enough to handle bifuel and trifuel capabilities to reduce dependency on a single fuel source. The short-term goal for the FlexDI seems to be commercial machinery, delivery trucks and construction vehicles that consume liberal amounts of diesel. Orbital, Sygma and VSE want to expand beyond the realm of power generators to light-duty vehicles as the FlexDI proves its worth.
Brazil’s role as an emerging economy means that the flex-fuel engines produced by Orbital, Sygma and VSE could be the wave of the future. Instead of guzzling gasoline at America-like levels, Brazil could be decreasing emission levels and increasing gas mileage without depending on a single source. The resulting decrease in operating costs will help Brazilian businesses stay competitive with China, India and the United States in the 21st century. As products like the Orbital FlexDI fuel Brazil’s economy, the rest of the world will benefit from the export of successful flex-fuel and green vehicle technologies.
