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Ultra low emissions and high performance combustion was achieved with a combination of high EGR, a three-way catalyst, and a highly oxygenated liquid fuel, neat dimethoxy methane (DMM), in an ordinary DI diesel engine. The smokeless nature of neat DMM effectively allowed stoichiometric diesel combustion by controlling BMEP with EGR. NOx, THC, and CO emissions were reduced with a three-way catalyst. At lower BMEP with excess air, the EGR effectively reduced NOx. High-speed video in a bottom view type engine revealed that luminous flame decreased with increased fuel oxygen content and almost disappeared with DMM.

Time resolved changes in unburned hydrocarbon emissions and their components were investigated in a DI diesel engine with a specially developed gas sampling system and gas chromatography. The tested transient operations include starting and increasing loads. At start-up with high equivalence ratios the total hydrocarbon (THC) at first increased, and after a maximum gradually decreased to reach a steady state value. Reducing the equivalence ratio of the high fueling at start-up and shortening the high fueling duration are effective to reduce THC emissions as long as sufficient startability is maintained. Lower hydrocarbons, mainly C1-C8, were the dominant components of the THC and mainly determined the THC behavior in the transient operations while the proportion of hydrocarbon (HC) components did not significantly change. The unregulated toxic substances, 1,3 butadiene and benzene were detected in small quantities.

Synthetic fuels (e-fuels) synthesized from H2 and CO by renewable electricity are expected as the next- generation diesel fuels and two types of e-fuels have received extensive attention: Fischer-Tropsch (FT) fuel and Oxymethylene dimethyl ether (OME). In this study the effects of OME blending ratios with 0 to 50 vol.% in FT fuels on combustion, emissions and spray characteristics in diesel engines are investigated. The results suggest that the OME blends to FT fuels suppressed the deterioration in combustion efficiency under low intake oxygen concentration conditions. The smoke emissions of FT fuels and OME blended fuels were both lower than those of diesel fuel and decreased with the increase in the OME blend ratio, and the soot-NOx trade-off relation in diesel engines can be improved.

The chemical composition of marketed gasoline varies depending on the crude oil, refinery processes of oil refineries, and season. The combustion characteristics of HCCI engines are very sensitive to the fuel composition, and a fuel standard for HCCI is needed for HCCI vehicles to be commercially viable. In this paper, the effects of the structure of the fuel components on auto-ignition characteristics and HCCI engine performance were investigated. The engine employed in the experiments is a research, single cylinder HCCI engine with a compression ratio of 14.7. The intake manifold was equipped with a heater attachment allowing control of the intake air temperature up to 150 °C at 2000 rpm. Thirteen kinds of hydrocarbons, 4 kinds of paraffins, 3kinds of naphthenes, and 6 kinds of aromatics, were chosen for the investigation, and 20vol% of each of the pure hydrocarbons was blended with the 80 vol% of PFR50 fuel.

Palm oil has the important advantage of productivity compared to other vegetable oils such as rapeseed oil and soybean oil. However, the cold flow performance of palm oil methyl ester (PME) is poorer than other vegetable oil based biodiesel fuels. Previous research by the authors has shown that ethanol blending into PME improves the cold flow performance and considerably reduces smoke emission. The reduced smoke may be expected to allow an expansion in the EGR limit and lead to reduced NOx. This paper experimentally analyses the influence of EGR on smoke and NOx emissions from the diesel combustion with PME/ethanol blended fuel. The mechanisms in the smoke reduction are also analyzed.

The influence of the molecular structure of hydrocarbon fuels on soot, SOF, and NOx emissions from a diesel engine was analyzed while ignition delay and other physical fuel properties were kept constant. Mixtures of normal paraffin (n-tetradecane) and iso-paraffin (heptamethylnonane) were used as a base fuel and one of 5 kinds of hydrocarbons including mono-aromatic, di-aromatic, and non-aromatic was added. The aromatic content varied in the range of 0-60 vol % for the mono-aromatic fuels and 0-40 vol % for the di-aromatic fuels. The experimental results showed that regardless of the molecular structure of the fuel, both particulate and NOx emissions increased linearly with the C/H atomic ratio of the fuels under constant ignition lag. The increase in particulate emissions with C/H atomic ratio was caused by increases in dry soot. The SOF, THC, and BSEC were little affected by the C/H atomic ratio and molecular structure of the fuels.

A homogeneous-charge compression-ignition (HCCI) engine system that was fuelled with dimethyl ether (DME) and methanol-reformed gas (MRG) has been proposed in the previous research. Adjusting the proportion of DME and MRG can effectively control the ignition timing of the engine. In the system, both fuels are to be produced from methanol in onboard reformers utilizing the engine exhaust gas heat. While hydrogen contained in MRG has the main role of the ignition control, hydrogen increases with carbon dioxide in the methanol reforming. This paper investigates the influence of carbon dioxide on HCCI combustion engine with the ignition control by hydrogen. Both thermal and chemical effects of carbon dioxide are analyzed.

Premixed diesel combustion modes including low temperature combustion and MK combustion are expected to realize smokeless and low NOx emissions. As ignition must be delayed until after the end of fuel injection to establish these combustion modes, methods for active ignition control are being actively pursued. It is reported that alcohols including methanol and ethanol strongly inhibit low temperature oxidation in HCCI combustion offering the possibility to control ignition with alcohol induction. In this research improvement of diesel combustion and emissions by ethanol intake port injection for the promotion of premixing of the in-cylinder injected diesel fuel, and by increased EGR for the reduction of combustion temperature.

In a natural gas fueled engine ignited by diesel fuel, the addition of hydrogen to the engine could be a possible way to improve thermal efficiency and reduce unburned methane which has a warming potential many times that of carbon dioxide as it promotes a more rapid and complete combustion. This study carried out engine experiments using a single cylinder engine with natural gas and hydrogen delivered separately into the intake pipe, and with pilot-injection of diesel fuel. The percentages of hydrogen in the natural gas-hydrogen mixtures were varied from 0% to 50% of the heat value. The results showed that the hydrogen addition has an insignificant effect on the ignition delay of the diesel fuel and that it shortens the combustion duration. The increase in the hydrogen ratio decreased the unburned hydrocarbon emissions more than the reduction of the amount of natural gas that was replaced by the hydrogen.

Port injection of ethanol addition as an ignition inhibitor was implemented to control ignition timing and expand the operating range in DME fueled HCCI combustion. The ethanol reduced the rate of low-temperature oxidation and consequently delayed the onset of the high-temperature reaction with ultra-low NOx over a wide operating range. Along with the ethanol addition, changes in intake temperature, overall equivalence ratio, and engine speed are investigated and shown to be effective in HCCI combustion control and to enable an extension of operation range. A chemical reaction analysis was performed to elucidate details of the ignition inhibition on low-temperature oxidation of DME-HCCI combustion.

The HCCI engine offers the potential of low NOx emissions combined with diesel engine like high efficiency, however HCCI operation is restricted to low engine speeds and torques constrained by narrow noise (HCCI knocking) and misfiring limits. Gasoline like fuel vaporizes and mixes with air, but the mixture may auto-ignite at the same time, leading to heavy HCCI knocking. Retarding the CA50 (the crank angle of the 50% burn) is well known as a method to slow the maximum pressure rise rate and reduce HCCI knocking. The CA50 can be controlled by the fuel composition, for example, di-methyl ether (DME), which is easily synthesized from natural gas, has strong low temperature heat release (LTHR) characteristics and ethanol generates strong LTHR inhibitor effects. The utilization of DME-ethanol binary blended fuels has the potential to broaden the HCCI engine load-speed range.

Forced ignition with glow plugs has great potential for the utilization of alcohol fuels in diesel engines. However, the installation of glow plugs may cause misfiring or knocking in parts of the operating range. This paper presents an analysis of the factors influencing the ignition characteristics of ethanol in a glow plug-assisted diesel engine; these factors may be classified into two categories: the factors related to the temperature history of the drop lets before contact with the glow plug, and those related to the probability of contact. By optimizing these factors, the combustion difficulties were successfully eliminated over the whole operating range, and engine performance comparable with conventional diesel operation was achieved.

Unregulated emissions from a DI diesel engine with ultra-high EGR low temperature combustion were analyzed using Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy and the reduction characteristics of both regulated and unregulated emissions by two exhaust catalysts were investigated. With ultra-high EGR suppressing the in-cylinder soot and Nox formation as well as with the exhaust catalysts removing the engine-out THC and CO emissions, clean diesel operation in terms of ultra-low regulated emissions (Nox, PM, THC, and CO) is established in an operating range up to 50% load. To realize smokeless low temperature combustion at higher loads, EGR has to be increased to a rate with the overall (average) excess air ratio less than the stoichiometric ratio.

Dual fuel combustion with premixed ethanol as the main fuel and direct injection of diesel fuel as an ignition source poses problems including large unburned emissions and excessively rapid combustion. In this report the influence of compression ratios, injection timings of diesel fuel, and intake oxygen concentrations was systematically investigated in a modern diesel engine. The combustion process was classified into three stages: the first rapid combustion of diesel fuel and the ethanol mixture entrained into the diesel fuel spray; the second mild combustion with flame propagation of the ethanol mixture; and the third rapid combustion with auto-ignition of the unburned ethanol mixture without knocking. The third stage combustion occurs occasionally at several operating conditions and has been termed as PREMIER (premixed mixture ignition in the end-gas region) combustion.

The influence of aromatic content in fuels on the soot and NOx emissions from a diesel engine was analyzed under controlled ignition lags with spark-assisted operation. Monocyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and n-hexane mixtures were used as fuels, and the aromatic content was varied from 0 to 75 v-%. The experiments showed that, at the same equivalence ratio and regardless of the molecular structure of the fuel, the soot concentration in the exhaust gas could be described by a linear-combination function with two variables representing the ignition lag and C/H atom-ratio of the fuels. For unchanged ignition lags, the soot emissions increased linearly with increased C/H atom-ratios, which are controlled by the aromatic content. The degree of increase in soot emissions with increasing C/H atom-ratio decreased with decreasing equivalence ratios. The NOx emission increased slightly with increases in the C/H atom-ratio and ignition lag.

Light naphtha, which exhibits two-stage ignition, was induced from the intake manifold for ignition enhancement and a low ignitability fuel or water, which does not exhibit low temperature oxidation, was directly injected early in the compression stroke for ignition suppression in an HCCI engine. Their quantitative balance was flexibly controlled to optimize ignition timing according to operating condition. Ultra-low NOx and smokeless combustion without knocking or misfiring was realized over a wide operating range. Alcohols inhibit low temperature oxidation more strongly than other oxygenated or unoxygenated hydrocarbons, water, and hydrogen. Chemical kinetic modeling for methanol showed a reduction of OH radical concentration before the onset of low temperature oxidation, and this may be the main mechanism by which alcohols inhibit low temperature oxidation.

Direct injection of various ignition suppressors, including water, methanol, ethanol, 1-propanol, hydrogen, and methane, was implemented to control ignition timing and expand the operating range in an HCCI engine with induced DME as the main fuel. Ultra-low NOx and smoke-less combustion was realized over a wide operating range. The reaction suppressors reduced the rate of low-temperature oxidation and consequently delayed the onset of high-temperature oxidation. Analysis of the chemical kinetics showed a reduction of OH radical in the premixed charge with the suppressors. Among the ignition suppressors, alcohols had a greater impact on OH radical reduction resulting in stronger ignition suppression. Although water injection caused a greater lowering of the temperature, which also suppressed ignition, the strong chemical effect of radical reduction with methanol injection resulted in the larger impact on suppression of oxidation reaction rates.

Silent, clean, and efficient combustion was realized with emulsified blends of aqueous ethanol and diesel fuel in a DI diesel with pilot injection and cooled EGR. The pilot injection sufficiently suppressed the rapid combustion to acceptable levels. The thermal efficiency with the emulsified fuel improved as the heat release with the pilot injection was retarded to near top dead center, due to poor ignitability and also due to a reduction in afterburning. With the emulsified fuel containing 40 vol% ethanol and 10 vol% water (E40W10), the smokeless operation range can be considerably extended even under low fuel injection pressure or low intake oxygen content conditions.

The thermal cracking and polyaromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) formation processes of dimethyl ether (DME), ethanol, and ethane were investigated with chemical kinetics to determine the soot formation mechanism of oxygenated fuels. The modeling analyzed three processes, an isothermal constant pressure condition, a temperature rising condition under a constant pressure, and an unsteady condition approximating diesel combustion. With the same mole number of oxygen atoms, the DME rich mixtures form much carbon monoxide and methane and very little non-methane HC and PAH, in comparison with ethanol or ethane mixtures. This suggests that the existence of the C-C bond promotes the formation of PAH and soot.

Spark knock suppression with hydrogen addition was investigated at two engine speeds (2000 rpm and 4800 rpm). The experimental results showed that the spark knock is strongly suppressed with increasing hydrogen fraction at 2000 rpm while the effect is much smaller at 4800 rpm. To explain these results, chemical kinetic analyses with a two-zone combustion model were performed. The calculated results showed that the heat release in the end gas zone rises in two stages with a remarkable appearance of low temperature oxidation (LTO) at 2000 rpm, while a single stage heat release without apparent LTO process is presented at 4800 rpm due to the shorter residence time in the low temperature region.