This Microscopic Engine Is So Complicated, Not Even Science Can Explain It

We're in an age of downsizing, where manufacturers are jumping at the chance to show off their tiny, frugal engines in city runabouts. Ford's 1.0-litre EcoBoost engine is smaller than a sheet of A4, but the scientists in Holland have trumped everyone - their engine is microscopic.

Vitaly Svetevoy of the University of Twente has announced that his team have created an internal combustion engine that is just 100 nanometers (0.0001mm) across, but there is a catch - they don't really know why it works.

It's simple in principle, so get your science hats on as we prepare to explain. The microengine contains a chamber filled with water, with a pair of electrodes passing through. When a current is passed through the electrodes, the oxygen and hydrogen in the water disassociate from each other creating 'nanobubbles' of gas. Although the bubbles are too small to see, the team know that the volume of gas dramatically increases, generating force.

As MIT Technology Review reports, "they apply an alternating voltage/current at 50KHz to create their engine. This produces a constant source of bubbles for combustion and causes a back-and-forth vibration of the membrane, which can be used to do work. Voila! A microscopic combustion engine."

The bit that has the guys stumped is that once the current is switched off, the pressure decreases dramatically. It happens way too quickly for conventional processes, so the scientists have had to come up with a new theory. They reckon that when the current is switched off, the nanoubbles spontaneously combust and reform as water. The combustion and removal of the gas results in a sudden drop in pressure.

Its potential real-world implementation for this research is currently unclear, however the very principle of a high-torque microscopic engine is a fascinating prospect. If you're feeling clever, you can read the full report here.