Clean Low Carbon Vehicles - Combustion with Simultaneous Nitrogen and Hydrogen Enrichment

该项目是一项新的燃烧技术的可行性研究，该技术将扩展柴油发动机的工作窗口，通过同时富集氮和氢的燃烧，包括更高效、更少污染的模式。这将通过船上燃料重整和向发动机供应产生的无氧重整来实现。该系统的新颖之处在于利用重整物的稀释效应，并结合(i)用氢气取代发动机气缸中的部分碳氢燃料，以及（ii）废热回收。稀释效果类似于完善的废气再循环技术和空气分离膜为发动机提供富氮空气以减少氮氧化物排放所提供的稀释效果。然而，在拟议系统的情况下，稀释效应不会伴随着相关的缺点，包括燃油经济性，二氧化碳罚款和颗粒物排放增加。该系统将基于在发动机中加入催化燃料重整器，该重整器将以发动机燃料（仍然是单一燃料系统）为燃料，产生含有N2和H2的气体混合物。该系统有望生产出清洁、低二氧化碳排放的柴油发动机，满足排放法规的要求，并提高燃油经济性。此外，通过减少后处理的负担，将进一步提高燃油经济性和二氧化碳排放量。所提出的技术可以实际集成并与大多数（如果不是全部的话）所提出的技术结合使用，以改善内燃机动力车辆的二氧化碳排放，除了柴油发动机外，还将评估燃料改造在汽油发动机中实现碳减排效益的潜力。可行性研究将由三个具有广泛发动机和催化技术研究经验的研究小组进行跨学科合作：布鲁内尔大学先进动力总成和燃料中心，伯明翰大学未来动力系统集团和卡迪夫大学催化研究所。本项目旨在对所提出的发动机-重整器系统进行概念验证和可行性论证。该计划包括：-在添加N2-H2混合物的模拟条件下研究发动机燃烧，性能和排放（Brunel）。这将确定重整产物气体所需的成分，并设定重整过程的目标性能。-催化剂研究（卡迪夫），以确定在相对温和的温度下选择性地进行重整反应的稳定催化剂。-在完全控制的反应堆条件下（伯明翰）研究废气和自热燃料重整过程，旨在实现发动机燃烧研究确定的产品成分和性能目标。-研究发动机燃烧，性能和排放模拟重整（布鲁内尔）。这将评估所有重整成分（如CO）对燃烧和排放的影响。它还将现实地评估通过向发动机添加与反应器（伯明翰）中获得的相同成分的气体混合物以及确定的最佳催化剂（卡迪夫）所获得的二氧化碳和燃料经济性改进。-研究汽油废气燃料重整，以评估从热化学计算中预测的能源效益有多少可以实际实现（伯明翰）。可行性研究的结果将为与汽车工业伙伴合作研究和开发完全集成的闭环发动机-重整系统的进一步工作提供详细的指导方针。研究结果可能会导致发动机的新进展，以重整为基础的N2-H2富集系统可作为开发新型前沿节能低碳发动机的使能技术。

The project is a feasibility study of a new combustion technology that will allow an extension of the operating window of diesel engines, to include more efficient and less polluting modes through simultaneous nitrogen and hydrogen combustion enrichment. This will be achieved by on board fuel reforming and supplying of the engine with the produced oxygen-free reformate. The novelty of the system is the utilisation of the dilution effect of the reformate combined with (i) replacement of part of the hydrocarbon fuel in the engine cylinder by hydrogen, and (ii) waste heat recovery. The dilution effect is similar to that offered by the well established exhaust gas recirculation technique and by air separation membranes supplying the engine with nitrogen- enriched air in order to reduce NOx emissions. However, in the case of the proposed system the dilution effect will not be accompanied by associated drawbacks that include fuel economy, CO2 penalties and increased particulate emissions. The system will be based on the incorporation of a catalytic fuel reformer in the engine that will be fed with engine fuel (still a single fuel system) to produce the N2 and H2 containing gas mixtures. The system has the potential to lead to a clean, low CO2 emissions diesel engine that will meet emissions legislation and offer improved fuel economy. Moreover, by reducing the burden on the aftertreatment the fuel economy and CO2 emissions will be further improved.The proposed technology can be practically integrated and used in conjunction with the majority of, if not all, the proposed technologies for improving CO2 emissions of IC engine powered vehicles, and in addition to diesel engines, the potential of fuel reforming to achieve carbon reduction benefits in gasoline engines will also be evaluated.The feasibility study will be carried out in an interdisciplinary collaboration by three research groups with experience in a wide range of engine and catalysis technologies research: the Brunel University Centre for Advanced Powertrain and Fuels, the University of Birmingham Future Power Systems Group and the Cardiff University Catalysis Institute. The present project aims at proof of concept and demonstration of feasibility of the proposed engine-reformer system. The programme includes:- Study of engine combustion, performance and emissions under simulated conditions with addition of N2-H2 mixtures (Brunel). This will establish the required compositions of reformer product gas and set the target performances of the reforming process.- Catalyst studies (Cardiff) to identify stable catalysts that will selectively perform reforming reactions at relatively mild temperatures.- Study of the exhaust gas and autothermal fuel reforming processes under fully controlled reactor conditions (Birmingham) aiming at achieving the product compositions and performance targets established by the engine combustion study.- Study of engine combustion, performance and emissions with simulated reformate (Brunel). This will assess the effects of all the reformate components (such as CO) on combustion and emissions. It will also realistically evaluate the CO2 and fuel economy improvements obtained by the addition, to the engine, of gas mixtures with compositions identical to those achieved in the reactors (Birmingham) with the identified optimum catalysts (Cardiff).- Study of gasoline exhaust gas fuel reforming to evaluate how much of the energy benefit predicted from thermochemical calculations can be practically achieved (Birmingham).The outcomes of the feasibility study will provide detailed guidelines for further work to study and develop a fully integrated closed loop engine-reformer system in collaboration with automotive industrial partners. The results from the study may lead to new advances in engines with the reforming-based N2-H2 enrichment system serving as the enabling technology for developing new frontier energy saving low carbon engines.