Mixing of Hydrogen In Gasoline Engines.

 With the ever-increasing cost of gasoline prices, automakers are having to work overtime to cost-effectively improve the fuel economy, while still meeting the strict emission requirements of today with gasoline engines. An ideal and promising way to boost the fuel economy of gas engines is to add hydrogen to the fuel/air mixture in the engine. Since hydrogen isn’t available at the local gas station, selling a hydrogen boosted gas engine wasn’t on the list of engines – until now.


Lack of emission

A major economical and environmental advantage to hydrogen boosted gas engines are low amounts of NOx emission gas, which will completely remove the need for external NOx emissions control system. Currently, NOx emissions control is a major cost problem for diesel engines that use expensive traps to meet the emission standards. Diesel engine particulate emissions must be collected by a filter that should be changed periodically.

Hydrogen boosted engines on the other hand require neither NOx nor particulate control and require only a low-cost oxidation catalyst to control very small amounts of exhaust which is formed mostly during the engine starting up and warming up. Additional cuts in emissions control requirements stem from the engine’s ability to use only the clean hydrogen enriched charge during the cold start phase when 90% of emissions are generated in the emission test.

Cost

 The hydrogen boost system is effectively a scamper technology that can be added to any (ICE) existing vehicle’s engine compartment. According to those who are  the developing the system, the cost of the system is less than half of the added cost for diesel. Mass production of hydrogen using better techniques can further cut the cost of operation.

The future
Prototype hydrogen boosted engines are now be installed in test SUV vehicles that have sufficient space for the reformer and its a related system. The start of long-term on road testing for performance, reliability, and durability information is planned for later sometime before the system goes further into development. Four-cylinder gasoline engines are likely to the be the prime candidates for the technology as high gas prices continue to generate competition among the higher fuel economy models that seek MPG leadership.
With gas prices getting higher and higher, hydrogen boosted gas engines offer you the chance to get more miles per litre and not have to worry about burning up all of your fuel. Instead of having to go out and buy diesel to conserve fuel, hydrogen boosted units will help you preserve gas. Even though they aren’t available to buy right now, they will be very soon. Many manufacturers are interested in them, as they offer gasoline engines something like never before. If you have a gas-powered vehicle and have thought of giving it up to go diesel, you might want to rethink of it as hydrogen boost units might change the world of gas engines forever.



A question might be arise in your minds that why don't we use solely hydrogen based internal combustion engines. The answer is due to the high emission of NOx. (As combustion of hydrogen with air produces high temperature where nitrogen becomes reactive and thus reacts with the oxygen present in the air mixture.) This hydrogen-based ICE produces very little or no SO2, CO2,CO or PM emissions. Apart from this, since hydrogen internal combustion engines are heat engines, their maximum efficiency is limited by the Carnot efficiency. Relatively, the efficiency of a fuel cell is limited by the Gibbs free energy, which is typically more than that of Carnot. Hydrogen combustion engines are particularly sensitive to transients in load, in terms of efficiency, and thus more suited to constant load operations. 







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