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Carnot Engines Redefining Heavy-Duty Power for a Decarbonized Future

The Challenge: How to replace the Diesel Engine?

At Carnot we are taking on the biggest challenge of our age; decarbonizing heavy-duty power and how to replace diesel engines. 

Hard-to-abate sectors — from shipping to long-haul road transport to remote power generation — face the biggest challenge in reaching net zero. Traditional internal combustion engine and especially diesel engines, waste much of their fuel energy as heat, and many cannot operate effectively on next-generation low-carbon fuels like hydrogen or ammonia.

Decarbonizing heavy-duty power requires technology that combines exceptional fuel efficiency with full fuel flexibility, without compromising on performance, reliability, or cost-effectiveness.

Carnot Engines – The World’s most efficient, multi-fuel engine

At Carnot Engines, we are developing the world’s most efficient engines. Conventional engines operate around 35% efficiency, where a Carnot Engine can operate at over 70% break thermal efficiency. By doubling fuel efficient, we half fuel consumption, delivering enormous cost savings to our customers.

A Carnot Engine can also work on any fuel, and switch anytime. A Carnot Engine can run on:

  • Hydrogen
  • Ammonia
  • Methanol
  • HVO/Biofuels
  • Biogas
  • LNG
  • Diesel

Our design targets >70% brake thermal efficiency — more than double the efficiency of many conventional diesel engines. By operating at higher temperatures and eliminating most cooling losses, Carnot Engines aim to dramatically reduce fuel consumption and slash greenhouse gas emissions across the toughest sectors.

Applications Across Multiple Sectors

Our technology is built for the hardest jobs in the most demanding environments:

  • Maritime power — main propulsion and auxiliary power units (APUs) for ships

  • Heavy-duty road transport — trucks, buses, and specialist vehicles

  • Off-grid and industrial power generation — remote mining, construction, and backup systems

These sectors demand high reliability, long service life, and global maintainability — our engines are being engineered to meet or exceed these benchmarks.

Driving Maritime Decarbonization

Shipping accounts for nearly 3% of global CO₂ emissions, and international regulations are tightening fast. Carnot Engines is working with leading shipping companies to demonstrate hydrogen and ammonia-fuelled engines in real-world maritime environments.

Upcoming trials include:

  • Hydrogen-powered auxiliary engine testing aboard a commercial vessel

  • Hydrogen Engines for Shipping with the UK’s first hydrogen auxiliary engine sea trials 

  • Ammonia-fuelled APU retrofit projects for improved efficiency and emissions reduction

  • Ammonia Marine Engines and Auxiliary power units 
  • Fuel-Flexible high efficiency engines
  • Decarbonised Port Power

Designed for the Net-Zero Transition

Our approach solves three critical barriers to decarbonizing heavy-duty power:

  1. Fuel flexibility — switch between low-carbon fuels as supply chains develop

  2. High efficiency — reduced fuel use means lower emissions and operating costs

  3. Modular scalability — from smaller APUs to MW-scale maritime powerplants

This combination allows operators to begin cutting emissions now while staying adaptable for future fuels and standards.

We are very excited to launch a £200,000 Crowdfunding round on Seedrs! 

This raise will provide us with another years runway, allow us to considerably advance our technical milestones and support our numerous grant projects. 

Make sure to have registered with us on Seedrs : 

Register on Seedrs

Supported by £4.6m in Grants!

Many of you may be thinking that 12 months is a lot of runway for a technology intensive company with a team of 11 FTEs. We can maximise the impact of £200,000 due to the considerable support provided by the Government R&D grants we have won. We currently have 5 running simultaneously! 

These include:

  1. £2.3m Hydrogen Marine APU – Pioneering hydrogen engines for Maritime applications and running a 30day pilot trial with a UK Shipping company. 
  2. £1.5m Bio-fuel Generator – Providing off-grid power to rural communities in Indonesia using bio-fuel generated from waste crop residue.
  3. Hydrogen & Ammonia Fuel Blend research – how blending fuels can maximise cost reductions & accelerate Maritime decarbonisation 
  4. Bio-gas generator demonstrator – A 50kW engine showing how bio-gas can replace diesel for off-grid power in industrial applications. 
  5. PhD Ceramic research project – a 4 year research program optimising the use of ceramics in our engine applications. 

Complete technical milestones 

Maximising the impact of our grants allows us to complete more technical milestones and thus minimise shareholder dilution before taking on institutional investors. 

Core targets over the next year include:

  1. Achieving at least a 55% Thermal Efficient engine with the core engine functionality and before exhaust heat recovery. 
  2. Begin multi-fuel development with both Hydrogen & Bio-fuel projects, focused mainly around fuel injector & systems integration. 
  3. Design the containerised solution which will form the core of field trials and our first commercially available  product. 

Targeting Gigaton scale decarbonising impact 

At Carnot, our mission is to have gigaton sale impact, decarbonising some of the heaviest polluting industrial applications on the planet. The maritime sector, heavy duty vehicles and off-grid power (Generators) together account for 13% of global emissions. Our technology is unique in we can decarbonise these applications whilst reducing operator costs. 

We have already proven countless aspects of our technology, achieving what no existing manufacture could previously do. 

Get involved!

Please make sure to have registered on Seedrs as soon as possible to make sure not to miss our. For any questions, please feel free to contact the team directly, and follow us on LinkedIn for regular updates during the round.