Performances and pollutant emissions of spark ignition engine using direct injection for blends of ethanol/ammonia and pure ammonia

Abstract

Combustion and emissions characteristics of a spark-ignition engine using direct injection of ethanol blended with ammonia and also pure ammonia were investigated in this study. The experiments were conducted using five different fuel compositions of ethanol/ammonia (C2H5OH/NH3): 100/0, 75/25, 50/50, 25/75, and 0/100. Two strategies of injection were conducted to reach homogenous or stratified conditions with three different intake pressures, 0.5, 1.0, and 1.5 bar corresponding to 2.8, 7.9, and 12 bar of IMEP. The performances and the pollutants emissions are compared as a function of fuel compositions at identical IMEP. High stability is observed for all blends and even for pure ammonia. However, operating conditions are more restrictive for pure ammonia: the injection must be executed during the intake phase to be in a fully premixed mode to guarantee engine stability. Delaying the injection time for pure ammonia is not possible and requires the split of injections with 50% of the ammonia amount injected during the intake. The thermal efficiency is improved by adding 25% of NH3 in ethanol but NOx emissions increase. The stratified strategy for blends improves the combustion durations and the addition of ammonia decreases the NOx emission compared to the homogeneous strategy. On the contrary, CO emissions roughly increase for blends. The presence of NH3 in the fuel composition clearly influences the change of formation of NOx and CO between both strategies.

Editorial –‘Thermo- and fluid-dynamics of clean propulsion powerplants’: THIESEL 2022 Special Issue by Xandra Margot

“…Indeed, five out of the nine papers presented here, deal with studies on combustion with diverse types of fuels, including ammonia and hydrogen. [5][6][7][8][9] Closely linked to this topic is naturally the fuel injection process since this is paramount to achieve a controlled and efficient combustion. 10 This has been one of the important topics of the conference too and three papers on this have been selected for this special issue.…”

“…As stated above, this special issue includes two papers about the use of ammonia as eco-fuel, 5,8 one on dual-fuel combustion for heavy-duty applications, 6 two on investigation related to hydrogen engines, 7,9 two on ducted fuel injection, 11,12 plus one on needle and armature dynamics of direct injectors. 13 Finally, the last one is on the fuel consumption of mobile air-conditioning systems in electrified vehicles.…”

“…13 Finally, the last one is on the fuel consumption of mobile air-conditioning systems in electrified vehicles. 14 Pele´et al 8 investigated experimentally combustion and emissions characteristics of a spark-ignition engine resulting from the injection of pure ammonia and of different ethanol-ammonia blends, with different strategies to reach homogeneous or stratified conditions at various intake pressures. Tamadonfar et al 5 on the other hand performed some quasi-DNS simulations to study the flame dynamics and structure of stoichiometric planar ammonia /hydrogen/air flames under different turbulent conditions.…”