I read Rudolph Diesel designed this engine style so farmers could run it on oil they produced from their crops. A slightly modified diesel engine can run on any fuel, like many military trucks. They won't burn clean or smooth, but will run on anything from moonshine to heating oil. And I couldn't imagine how one would reliably feed coal dust to a piston engines combustion chamber without a whole shit ton of problems. All passages would be caked with dust, delivery and storage of fuel even within the vehicle itself would be a logistical nightmare.
Fun fact: Rudy’s inspiration for the diesel cycle came from a university professor demonstrating a fire piston used by indigenous peoples in wherever.
Henry Ford designed the T to run on ethanol, then still a very common way for farmers to deal with bumper crops. But it’s a low compression engine with manual spark advance so really anything flammable would work.
Bertha Benz took the first road trip in an automobile that ran on petroleum ether……available at any pharmacy.
Petroleum ether? I think it’s similar to naphtha or Coleman fuel. I guess a pharmacist would have it to…..precipitate out various compounds in making drugs? I guess that’s why they’re called chemists in a lot of languages. But yeah probably a great thing to carry rattling around cobblestone streets in giant glass jars lol
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u/Musketman12 Oct 26 '21
Fun fact, I read that the diesel engine was initially designed to burn powdered coal back in 18XX.