Hydrogen Fueled Internal Combustion Engine: A Review

Hydrogen Fueled Internal Combustion Engine: A Review.  Continuous and fast depletion of the fossil fuels and exponential growth in the industrial demand for conventional fuels are increasing sharply. This is demanding the circumstances to carry out research in order to find out the viable alternate fuels, for meeting sustainable energy demand with minimum environmental hazards, cost effective and safe. All the above challenges can be addressed by the use of hydrogen as an alternate fuel. In this paper the fundamentals of the hydrogen as a fuel in the internal combustion engine has been discussed. Fuel properties such as combustion, performance and emission characteristics of hydrogen fueled engine are described.

 Introduction

Hydrogen Fueled Internal Combustion Engine.

  From many years, hydrocarbon fuels have played a leading role in the transportation and power generation. Due to increase in destruction in the environment by emission and depletion of the worldwide petroleum resources, research must be carried out to find an alternate fuel to overcome the major problems. As a result of various alternative fuels like liquefied compressed gas (LPG), compressed natural gas (CNG), vegetable oil, biogas, producer gas, hydrogen etc, have been considered as substitute for the hydrocarbon based fuels [1]. An internal combustion engine, hydrogen can be used as a sole fuel. The higher self-ignition temperature of the hydrogen (858) needs external source to initiate the combustion in the combustion chamber. Emission such as HC, CO, CO2,  SOx   and smoke are either not observed or very much lower than the hydrocarbons used as fuels [2]. The unburned hydrogen may come out of the engine, through the exhaust but it is not considered as hydrogen is non-toxic in nature and does not involve in any smog reaction. This paper provides a brief summary of the combustion, performance and emission characteristics of the hydrogen fuel in an internal combustion engine with respect to the other traditional fuels

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CONCLUSION

It is evident from the study that it is advantageous to use hydrogen enriched air as a fuel in internal combustion engines. Power and torque loss occurs at low speed hydrogen operation. At high speed hydrogen gives better performance as compare to gasoline operation. Similarly Thermal efficiency and Brake mean effective pressure of hydrogen is more at higher speed. NOx emission in internal combustion engine reduces to the maximum considerable amount. This makes it possible to run the engine leaner, resulting in lower emissions of CO2, CO and HC. Short time of combustion produces lower exhaust gas temperature for hydrogen. Hydrogen is a very good candidate as an engine fuel. Appropriate changes in the combustion chamber together with better cooling mechanism would increase the possibility of using hydrogen across a wider operating range.

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