Ceramics in Experimental Diesel Engines Diesel engines run hotter than gasoline engines.
This allows them to be more efficient but also results in lot of energy tied up as heat.
In conventional diesel engines a this heat and the energy it contains is lost through the cooling system and the exhaust gases.
Present diesel engines lose about 30 percent of the energy of the fuel through the cooling system and nearly another 30 percent in the exhaust heat.
Diesel engineers are trying to find ways to capture this lost and put it to work to increase the power and efficiency of the energy engine.
Ceramics are an important focus of their efforts.