Trends of Syngas as a Fuel in Internal Combustion Engines

Abstract

Syngas from biomass and solid waste is a carbon-neutral fuel believed to be a promising fuel for future engines. It was widely used for spark-ignition engines in the WWII era before being replaced with gasoline. In this paper, the technological development, success, and challenges for application of syngas in power generating plants, the trends of engine technologies, and the potential of this fuel in the current engine technology are highlighted. Products of gasification vary with the variation of input parameters. Therefore, three different syngases selected from the two major gasification product categories are used as case studies. Their fuel properties are compared to those of CNG and hydrogen and the effects on the performance and emissions are studied. Syngases have very low stoichiometric air-fuel ratio; as a result they are not suitable for stoichiometric application. Besides, syngases have higher laminar flame speed as compared to CNG. Therefore, stratification under lean operation should be used in order to keep their performance and emissions of NOx comparable to CNG counterpart. However, late injection stratification leads to injection duration limitation leading to restriction of output power and torque. Therefore, proper optimization of major engine variables should be done in the current engine technology.

A feasibility study of agricultural and sewage biomass as biochar, bioenergy and biocomposite feedstock: Production, characterization and potential applications

“…Pure hydrogen could be obtained from syngas through CaO adsorption (Wang et al, 2008). Syngas could also potentially be converted to liquid and industrial chemicals or could be a component in the preparation of fuels and chemicals (Hagos et al, 2014). Moreover, syngas can be used to create synthetic natural gas, ammonia, methanol, and synthetic petroleum fuel (dimethyl ethersynthetic gasoline and diesel fuel).…”

Performance Study of Imitated Syngas in a Dual-Fuel Compression Ignition Diesel Engine

“…Syngas is a gaseous fuel that can be produced from the process of biomass gasification [1]. Syngas has a low-density energy and low calorific value compared to diesel [2,3].…”

“…Different engines have been operated with syngas as a fuel [1,11,12], but the ignition system of most of these engines was spark ignition (SI). An engine with an SI combustion system is not considered appropriate for syngas fuel under operation of high load; this is because achieving stable combustion is not possible owing to the fluctuation of the syngas components.…”

Performance and emissions of a modified small engine operated on producer gas

“…However, the use of producer gas to run internal combustion engines, so for, has not been very successful because the power is usually de-rated during the operation. A major cause of lower performance with producer gas is due to its low energy density, compared to gasoline, diesel or natural gas [3,4]. The engine performance may be improved by two methods.…”