A new class of engine for the heat the world throws away. The Invenco gravity-heat engine converts low-grade heat — waste heat, agricultural residue, any fuel that burns — into slow, high-torque rotary power. It works where turbines are uneconomic, it is built from workshop-grade steel anywhere on Earth, and wheels gang in series to multiply output.
*Simulation-derived (8-spoke, 40 RPM configuration). Prototype validation programme in progress.
Turbines rule power generation for one reason: at high temperature and huge volume they are unbeatable. But turbines are creatures of scale. Below a few hundred kilowatts, or below roughly 300 °C, the precision blades, high shaft speeds, seals and skilled maintenance stop paying for themselves. Organic Rankine (ORC) plants push the temperature floor down — but not the cost, complexity, or the need for a supply chain that simply doesn't exist in most of the world.
The result is a vast, empty quadrant on the map of power generation: modest heat, modest scale, remote location. Furnace exhausts, brick kilns, diesel gensets, rice mills, sugar plants, flare stacks — millions of sites rejecting heat that no machine on the market can economically turn into power.
The Invenco wheel is designed for exactly that quadrant. It trades the turbine's virtues (speed, compactness) for the ones this market actually needs: mechanical simplicity, tolerance of low-grade heat, workshop fabrication, and 40–60 RPM operation that ordinary bearings and belts can handle for decades.
This machine is a heat engine, and only a heat engine. Gravity moves the energy through the mechanism; it does not supply it. Every joule at the shaft is paid for by heat absorbed in the boiler, and output is bounded by the same Carnot limit that governs every engine ever built. We state this plainly because this family of machines has a century of disreputable cousins — unpowered "gravity wheels" that could never work.
What history's honest attempts (the Minto wheel and its relatives) actually proved is that the concept turns — at near-atmospheric pressure, tiny temperature differences, and useless speeds. They failed on friction and fluid delivery, not thermodynamics. Invenco's contribution is engineering, not new physics: operating the known cycle at industrially relevant pressure and temperature, and solving the rotary sealing and mechanical balance problems that stopped everyone before.
A live physics model of the wheel — rigid linked pairs, pressure-differential drive, cutoff valve with trapped expansion, and a generator load. It conserves energy: set the supply pressure to the exhaust level and the wheel will not turn. Drag the sliders and watch the speed history respond.
Simplified from Invenco's full engineering simulator (per-cylinder pressure dynamics, valve lag, structural inertia), available in the technical data room.
| Steam turbine | ORC turbine | Stirling | Thermoelectric | Invenco wheel | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Practical heat source | ~400°C+, boiler-grade | ~90°C+, large flows | ~150°C+ for real power | any ΔT, tiny power | ~150–400°C target regime |
| Economic minimum scale | multi-MW | typ. 100s of kW | kW, at high £/kW | watts | kW-scale upward |
| Shaft speed | 3,000+ RPM | 10,000+ RPM turbo | high | none | 40–60 RPM |
| Precision machinery | very high | high | high (seals, regenerator) | semiconductor | low — plate steel, welds, standard cylinders |
| Maintenance burden | specialist crews | specialist contracts, fluid handling | seal & regenerator overhauls | minimal, but degrades | bearings, seals, valves — routine mechanic work |
| Build & maintain locally in developing regions | no | rarely | limited | no (import) | yes — designed for it, proven by our own build |
| Fuel / heat flexibility | boiler fuels | fluid-limited | good | good | any external heat — fully fuel-agnostic |
| Modularity | site-engineered | packaged units | units | panels | wheels gang in series on one shaft |
| Maturity | mature | mature | niche | niche | patented · prototype in validation |
The verdict in our segment is simple. Steam and ORC turbines are excellent machines — at scale. Below ~100 kW their cost per kilowatt balloons, their expanders demand specialist maintenance contracts, and in off-grid and capital-poor markets they are, in practice, absent. Stirling engines have been attempting this segment for decades and have repeatedly failed to commercialise — sealing, regenerator cost, and price per kilowatt defeated every major programme. The gap on FIG. 2 is not empty because nobody noticed it; it is empty because nothing built so far could hold it. The Invenco wheel is designed from its first bolt to hold it.
Comparisons are qualitative and indicative; competitor figures are typical published ranges. We list our own status honestly — in validation — because the column on the right is only revolutionary if the numbers behind it survive independent measurement. That measurement programme is exactly what this stage of the company funds.
Because the wheel is driven by an external closed fluid loop, it never touches the fuel. Anything that can warm the boiler can run the engine — which turns three separate markets into one machine.
Furnace and kiln exhausts, diesel genset stacks, compressor coolers, process steam condensate. Power from heat the site already paid for — fuel cost: zero.
Rice husk, bagasse, straw, nut shells, food-processing residues — burned in a simple external firebox, or digested to biogas. Fuels that are free, local, and currently a disposal problem.
Non-tracking solar thermal collectors and small biogas plants sit squarely inside the engine's temperature window — carbon-free heat where grid power never arrives.
Waste-to-energy at village and factory scale, without the emissions-control burden of making high-grade steam — the engine is content with the modest heat small incineration actually produces.
Scale by diameter. Torque grows with the wheel: the same architecture is modelled from the Ø3.5 m prototype up to Ø24 m. No redesign — larger plate, longer stroke, same valves. Drag the slider to see it against a person.
Scale by series. Multiple wheels mount on a single shaft with phase offsets — smoothing torque delivery and multiplying power like cylinders in an engine. Our four-wheel configuration is already modelled in the engineering simulator: four wheels, one generator, one foundation.
Deploy where the need is. The machine is S355 plate steel, lead blocks, standard hydraulic cylinders and one patented rotary union. Everything except the union can be fabricated in a competent workshop on any continent — our own prototype is being built by our partner in Pakistan, which is not a compromise but a proof: if it can be built there economically, it can be built anywhere the waste heat is. Off-grid industry today runs on diesel at extreme cost per kilowatt-hour; a machine fed by waste heat or free residue fuel does not have to be efficient to be transformative there — it has to be buildable, and this one is.
Torque figures simulation-derived at reference load; unvalidated pending prototype testing.
21 granted claims covering the core hydraulic-fluid / separator / pneumatic-accumulator gravity-heat engine architecture. Held by the company.
Delivers high-pressure working fluid through the axle to the rotating cylinders — directly addressing the sealing and friction failure mode that ended every historical attempt at this engine family.
Diametrically opposite weights mechanically linked so extending one retracts the other — eliminating return springs and accumulators, with the centrifugal loads of each pair substantially cancelling. Multiple linking architectures under claim development.
A closed Rankine-type loop feeds the wheel from any heat source, while an early-cutoff admission valve with trapped polytropic expansion cuts working-fluid consumption ~22% at constant output — classical steam practice applied at modern pressures.
A prior-art review of the gravity-imbalance engine family (1959–2015) has been completed and sits with our patent attorneys; new claims are drafted around Invenco's specific mechanical architecture rather than broad functional language.
| Reference prototype — Ø3.5 m | |
|---|---|
| Configuration | 12 spokes · 6 linked pairs |
| Working masses | 12 × 100 kg lead (160×160×344 mm) |
| Mass radius / stroke | 350 → 1750 mm · 1400 mm |
| Hub | Ø450 mm, integrated rotary union |
| Target speed | 40–60 RPM |
| Admission cutoff | 78% stroke, trapped expansion |
| Frame | ~900 kg S355, anchored, 1st mode >15 Hz |
| Scalability | Architecture modelled to Ø24 m · series-modular |
Full engineering package exists: general-arrangement and detail drawings DWG-01–08, frame design and anchoring calculations, technical and commercial reports (English and Urdu editions).
GB2622701 granted. Drawings, frame design, simulation suite and bilingual documentation delivered.
Fabrication company established with our Pakistan manufacturing partner; equity structure in place.
Wheel, frame and fluid circuit in build. New patent filings being prepared in parallel.
Calibrated measurement of heat in vs shaft power out, with independent witnessing — the data pack that converts theory into an investable claim.
First waste-heat pilot site; engineering of the production-scale machine.
UK-based technology company holding the intellectual property. Founded by Luq [surname], physicist and inventor — design, simulation, IP strategy and commercialisation are led from the UK.
A formalised fabrication company with agreed equity structure builds and will test the prototype — giving Invenco low-cost, fast-turnaround heavy fabrication, and a foothold in exactly the energy-hungry industrial markets this machine serves first.
To complete prototype fabrication and instrumented validation, file the new patent applications, and prepare the first pilot. SEIS/EIS advance assurance is being sought so UK investors can claim income-tax relief. [Confirm status with accountant before publishing.]
The company's UK-lead / Pakistan-partner structure matches the Energy Catalyst programme (clean energy access, South Asia) precisely. Application in preparation for the next competition round.
Fabrication completion · calibrated instrumentation and independent test witnessing · patent prosecution (UK priority + PCT decision) · university validation partnership.
Granted patent · engineering drawings DWG-01–08 · frame & anchoring design · interactive physics simulators · prior-art review · commercial report. Request access: contact@invencoeng.com