Plasma Ignition Sparks Higher Fuel Economy And Cleaner Emissions

A California start-up has produced a vehicle ignition system it says reduces harmful emissions and raises fuel economy, while tossing aside century-old science still being used today, as the world awaits greater consumer acceptance of electric vehicles. 

The system developed by Transient Plasma Systems (TPS) of Torrance, Calif. substitutes low-temperature plasma for the traditional spark and also does away with ignition coils.

The issue with sparks, said TPS CEO and co-founder, Dan Singleton, is the fuel/air mixture must be exactly right to create a strong combustion.

“What our technology does it is, it unlocks that restrictiveness so now you have a much wider range of fuel mixtures and operating conditions that you can run in and so that frees up automakers to design advanced combustion modes that they’ve been trying to access for decades—things like running an extremely lean mixture, meaning having a lot more air than fuel, and in that case you can burn at lower temperature which is going to produce less NOX and you’re going to have a more efficient engine because there’s less heat losses burning at a lower temperature,” said Singleton in a telephone interview.

He explained that plasma is a generic term, and that a spark is a type of plasma. In the case of TPS’s system, the plasma is much cooler than a spark emitted in very short, nanosecond, pulses like a lightning bolt producing extremely high power.

“So in a spark about 1% of the energy goes into actually igniting the fuel/air mixture. In our low temperature plasma more than 50% of the energy you put in actually goes into the gas in the form of this plasma,” said Singleton.  

Less fuel is used because the reactions are quicker requiring a leaner mixture of fuel to air, he said.

The TPS system is designed as a drop-in replacement to spark ignition. New spark plugs with slightly different tips are installed and a TPS ignition module replaces the coil. 

“That system, which we designed, produces the extremely fast, nanosecond long pulses you need to make that plasma.” 

TPS grew out of Singleton’s graduate studies at the University of Southern California. Together with his Phd. advisor Martin Gundersen who had been studying ignition technology for 30 years, Singleton at first looked at some advanced aircraft concepts, which, he says, gave him “a couple of areas to focus on.” Joined by two other colleagues they published several papers espousing their theories and received enough positive responses that they formed a company in 2009 in Singleton’s garage, which they eventually sold to an aerospace company.

As Singleton tells it, the group continued to look at ignition technology and in 2014 “took the leap,” set up an office, hired an employee and drew salaries. 

The new company then handed its technology to the Sandia National Laboratories Combustion Research facility and to Argonne National Laboratory for further vetting, published additional papers and “got the attention of OEMs (automakers) since 2014.” 

Once TPS received enough validation that the technology was viable, it sought venture capital funding and last year completed an $8.5 million Series A round led by Kairos Ventures.

Singleton says TPS has no intention of manufacturing its ignition system, preferring to sell or license the technology to automakers or suppliers. An “implementation-ready” system will be ready by the end of this,” he said. 

He’s well-aware automakers are pouring money and resources into electric vehicles as they attempt to move away from those powered by internal combustion engines, but says something must be done to reduce harmful emissions until consumer acceptance of EV’s reaches a much higher level. That’s where the TPS system comes in. 

“There has to be another evolutionary step for vehicles before EVs rule the road and that means combustion engines are gonna be around…and in the meantime they’re polluting more than they need to be,” said Singleton. “If we can’t skip ahead in the area of ubiquitous EVs, these engines need to become cleaner and more efficient very quickly because of regulations on emissions.”