Abstract
This is the second part of a two-part investigation of on-board catalytic fuel reforming to increase the brake efficiency of a multicylinder, stoichiometric spark-ignited (SI) engine. In Part 1 of the investigation, we analytically and experimentally characterized the energetics and kinetics of a candidate reforming catalyst over a range of reforming equivalence ratios and oxygen concentration conditions to identify the best conditions for efficient reforming. In the present part of our investigation, we studied an engine strategy that combined exhaust gas recirculation (EGR)-loop reforming with dilution limit extension of the combustion. In our experiments, we found that, under an engine operating condition of 2000 rpm and brake mean effective pressure (4 bar), catalytic EGR reforming made it possible to sustain stable combustion with a volumetric equivalent of 45%-55% EGR. Under this same operating condition with stoichiometric engine exhaust (and no reforming), we were only able to sustain stable combustion with EGR under 25%. These results indicate that multicylinder gasoline engine efficiency can be increased substantially with catalytic reforming combined with and higher EGR operation, resulting in a decrease of more than 8% in fuel consumption, compared to baseline operation.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 2257-2266 |
| Number of pages | 10 |
| Journal | Energy and Fuels |
| Volume | 32 |
| Issue number | 2 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Feb 15 2018 |
Funding
This manuscript has been authored by UT-Battelle, LLC, under Contract No. DE-AC0500OR22725 with the U.S. Department of Energy. The U.S. government retains and the publisher, by accepting the article for publication, acknowledges that the U.S. government retains a nonexclusive, paid-up, irrevocable, worldwide license to publish or reproduce the published form of this manuscript, or allow others to do so, for U.S. government purposes. The U.S. Department of Energy will provide public access to these results of federally sponsored research in accordance with the DOE Public Access Plan (http://energy.gov/downloads/doe-public-access-plan). The authors declare no competing financial interest. The authors gratefully acknowledge the support of the U.S. Department of Energy Vehicle Technologies Office, particularly program managers Gurpreet Singh and Mike Weismiller. Y.C. was also enrolled as a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Michigan at the time of this publication. The authors gratefully acknowledge the support of the U.S. Department of Energy Vehicle Technologies Office, particularly program managers Gurpreet Singh and Mike Weismiller. Y.C. was also enrolled as a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Michigan at the time of this publication. She would like to express gratitude for the strong support she received from her coadvisors, Prof. Andre Boehman and Dr. Stani Bohac.