Attainment of High Thermal Efficiency and Near-zero Emissions by Optimizing Injected Spray Configuration in Direct Injection Hydrogen Engines

The authors have previously proposed a plume ignition and combustion concept (i.e., PCC combustion), in which a hydrogen fuel is directly injected to the combustion chamber in the latter half of compression stroke and forms a richer mixture plume. By combusting the plume, both cooling losses and NOx formation are reduced. In this study, thermal efficiency was substantially improved and NOx formation was reduced with PCC combustion by optimizing such characteristics as direction and diameter of the jets in combination with combustion of lean mixture. Output power declined due to the lean mixture, however, was recovered by supercharging while keeping NOx emissions at the same level. Thermal efficiency was further improved by slightly re-optimizing the jet conditions. The results showed that the hydrogen engine can attain near-zero emissions of NOx reduced to the single-digit ppm level with high thermal efficiency close to 50 percent and can thus be truly called a near-zero emission engine.