Retrofitted Diesel Engines to Use Hydrogen as Fuel, Increasing Efficiency by 26%
Engineers at the University of New South Wales (UNSW) have retrofitted a diesel engine to use hydrogen as a fuel. Resulting in a reduction in carbon emissions, TechXplore reported. The staff spent 18 months designing the dual-fuel injection system that utilizes 90 percent hydrogen as fuel. However, the team is positive that in the future, retrofits can be finished in a matter of months.
Electrified transportation has received an increased motivation in recent months, with states and countries prohibiting the sales of internal combustion vehicles in the coming decade. While being an action in the right direction, there is a necessity to quickly evolve technologies that can replace the larger vehicles such as dose intended for long-haul, that do the industries heavy lifting.
Recently, Tesla Semi Trucks started rolling off the production line, and other electric-powered vehicle manufacturers could do the same. However, a full overhaul of heavy vehicles to zero emissions may take years, possibly decades.
A solution? Retrofitting
This justifies why the effort of the UNSW engineers is commendable. Retrofitting existing diesel engines would speed up the transition to a cleaner fuel-burning system.
Hydrogen can be much more eco-friendly when made using renewable energy than burning fossil fuels like diesel. The initiative led by Shawn Kook, a professor at the School of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering, has been shown to have minimized carbon dioxide exhausts to 90 g/ kWh, approximately 86% lower than that generated by a diesel-powered engine.
The dual-fuel system
The group has kept the diesel injection into the engine and directly included a hydrogen fuel injection to the cylinder. Surprisingly, the team’s efforts also found a way to circumvent the high nitrogen oxide (NOx) exhausts linked with hydrogen engines.
Rather than placing hydrogen into the engine and allowing it to mix, the scientists discovered that its stratified addition substantially minimizes NOx emissions. Suggesting that the presence of hydrogen is concentrated in specific sections of the engine while being lower in other sections. In general, the nitrogen oxide emissions, causative of acid rain and air contamination, were lowered in the dual-fuel engine.
More significantly, unlike hydrogen fuel cell systems, the dual fuel system created by UNSW scientists does not need high-purity hydrogen to be used as fuel. Considering that producing high-purity hydrogen is costly, the new system could be deployed at reduced prices for the end users.
An included advantage is the rise in energy efficiency over existing diesel engines, which the scientists reported to have enhanced by as much as 26%. This was accomplished by individually regulating the injection timings of both fuels.
The group is confident of commercializing the technology within the following two years and plans to initially release it in industrial areas such as mining sites where piped hydrogen lines already exist. Following this, the team will aim to make its technology more portable, where a hydrogen storage system will also be needed.
The findings were published in the International Journal of Hydrogen Energy.
Originally published by: Interesting Engineering
