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After some 40 years of practical research and testing in Japan, the technology for a high pressure direct injection hydrogen internal combustion engine (ICE) with near-zero emissions free from CO2 was successfully developed by the author. Four fundamental challenges to make a hydrogen car a competitive alternative to both electric and traditional fossil fuel vehicles were successfully met. (1) Hydrogen’s lack of lubrication destroys the sealing surface of the injector nozzle. (2) Injectors must be of very small size to be installed onto the engine head where the four valves are located on each cylinder. (3) Multi-injection requires high dynamic response. (4) Liquid hydrogen tank’s internal pump would fail when bringing liquid hydrogen (LH2) to the required high pressure levels due to frictional heat.

A development project for a hydrogen internal combustion engine (ICE) system for trucks supporting Japanese freightage has been promoted as a candidate for use in future vehicles that meet ultra-low emission and anti-global warming targets. This project aims to develop a hydrogen ICE truck that can handle the same freight as existing trucks. The core development technologies for this project are a direct-injection (DI) hydrogen ICE system and a liquid hydrogen tank system which has a liquid hydrogen pump built-in. In the first phase of the project, efforts were made to develop the DI hydrogen ICE system. Over the past three years, the following results have been obtained: A high-pressure hydrogen gas direct injector developed for this project was applied to a single-cylinder hydrogen ICE and the indicated mean effective pressure (IMEP) corresponding to a power output of 147 kW in a 6-cylinder hydrogen ICE was confirmed.