According to car manufacturers EUCAR consortium beyond the year 2010, the share of engines will depend mainly on:
- legislation
-·availability of mature new technologies
-·infrastructure of alternative fuels
-·availability of modified / synthetic fuels and lubricants
-·costs and customer acceptance

CLEANENGINE addresses 3 of these main aspects; research activities will be focused on development of modern clean motors based on:
-·liquid biofuels coming from biomass (like biodiesel and bioethanol)
-·environmentally friendly and ash-free lubes and/or lubrication concepts.

Impact of bio fuels and bio lubes usage on current small (ship), medium (car) and large (ship) diesel and/or gasoline engine configurations will be evaluated and compatible optimised solutions in materials, geometry and after-treatment will be developed considering lifecycle assessment methodologies.

Main effects will be:
-·increasing engines efficiency (by reducing internal friction and improving combustion) adapting them to the use up to 100% pure biofuels
-·reduce emissions at the source (very heavily in CO2 emissions taking into account the complete life cycle of the biofuels, even up to zero CO2 emissions when using 100% biodiesel; reductions in NOx, CO and PM when using mixtures of oxygenated biofuels as bioethanol);
-·improve the technological and industrial practice related to the use of alternative fuels in combination with environmentally friendly lubricants.

The advantage that can be gained in this project will help in consolidating strategic knowledge for the European large industrial partners (Fuchs, Fiat, Arizona Chemicals, Guascor, Ecocat) and the SMEs (Firad, Abamotor), assisted by research centres of excellence (BAM, TEKNIKER, AVL, OBR). They all will be able to compete world-wide with the results gained in this project, especially in the new emerging markets of the "clean engines".