Engineers have managed to create a new process to retrofit diesel engines by using hydrogen as a fuel. The team of scientists at the University of New South Wales (UNSW) retrofitted a diesel engine to run on 90 percent hydrogen, which led to a more than 85 percent reduction in carbon emissions. The findings of the team were published in a research paper in the International Journal of Hydrogen Energy.
“This new technology significantly reduces CO2 emissions from existing diesel engines, so it could play a big part in making our carbon footprint much smaller, especially in Australia with all our mining, agriculture and other heavy industries where diesel engines are widely used,” said Professor Shawn Kook, the lead of the project.
The new research offers an important link between the switch from internal combustion engines that use fossil fuel to electric cars. By retrofitting existing engines, the world can severely cut down on carbon emissions. The only limiting factor is the price of hydrogen, which many companies around the world are already working on.
Working for 18 months, the team managed to create specifically timed hydrogen direct injection into the engine. This resulted in hydrogen being used in the engine without excessive production of nitrogen oxide, a harmful gas that’s a product of using hydrogen in normal ICE engines. By stratifying the levels of hydrogen being injected into the engine, the engineers managed to bring nitrogen oxide emission levels below that of a standard diesel engine.
Additionally, the retrofitted engine is also more efficient than a standard diesel engine. The team’s Hydrogen-Diesel Direct Injection Dual-Fuel System resulted in the engine being 26 percent more efficient. Perhaps most impressively, the engine does not require high-purity hydrogen to be used as fuel, something which is the limiting factor in other hydrogen-based technology like fuel cells.
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(Edited by : Sudarsanan Mani)
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