Hydrogen retro fit and semi retro fit diesel motors

[lvmci]

AUTOMOTIVE
Retrofit system converts existing diesel engines to run on 90% hydrogen
By Loz Blain
October 13, 2022

Retrofitting existing diesel engines to run mainly on hydrogen may be a fast way for large fleets to rapidly reduce their carbon footprint without junking existing assets
Retrofitting existing diesel engines to run mainly on hydrogen may be a fast way for large fleets to rapidly reduce their carbon footprint without junking existing assets, Prof Shawn Kook / UNSW

UNSW researchers have prototyped and tested a retrofit system that converts diesel engines to run on 90% hydrogen, radically reducing both carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide emissions while boosting efficiency by an impressive 26% in the process.


Running 10% diesel, the process is not a full green conversion for diesel engines, but it does offer a way for certain businesses to hugely reduce their emissions output without wastefully junking existing assets that could still remain useful for a long time...
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The retrofit system keeps the diesel injection system, but adds hydrogen injection directly to the cylinder, as well as independent control of injection timing for both the hydrogen and diesel systems. It doesn't require particularly high-purity hydrogen, and the team has demonstrated that its "stratified" hydrogen injection technique, which creates pockets of higher and lower hydrogen concentrations in the cylinder, reduces the incidence of nitrous oxide emissions below that of a straight diesel.

The overall carbon dioxide emissions drop by some 85%, to around 90 grams/kWh of energy – that would certainly represent a solid intermediate step towards total decarbonization for many operations using large fleets of diesel vehicles.

Of course, it relies on hydrogen being available – which, in most areas, is not yet the case. But as the key green vehicle alternative to lithium batteries, hydrogen's time may be coming. Lithium supply shortages look set to rock the battery EV market in the coming few years, right when government regulations start kicking in to seriously accelerate the transition to zero-emissions driving in many jurisdictions. And green hydrogen projects are springing up all over the globe.


UNSW researchers Professor Shawn Kook (right), Xinyu Liu (back left) and Jinxin Yang (front left) with the diesel-to hydrogen retrofit test rig
UNSW researchers Professor Shawn Kook (right), Xinyu Liu (back left) and Jinxin Yang (front left) with the diesel-to hydrogen retrofit test rigProf Shawn Kook / UNSW
Still, for the time being, the UNSW team is working to get its diesel engine retrofit systems commercialized within the next two years, and it's targeting industrial fleet and generator operators like mining operations, many of which already have hydrogen piped to the site. Again, this is currently unlikely to be green hydrogen, so the initial uses might effectively just be transferring their emissions to some Haber-Bosch plant down the street. But as the green hydrogen industry ramps up, it'll be important for investors to know there's reliable and growing demand from vehicles out there already using hydrogen and looking for a cleaner solution.

“We have shown that we can take those existing diesel engines and convert them into cleaner engines that burn hydrogen fuel," said Professor Shawn Kook, lead author on a paper just published in the International Journal of Hydrogen Energy. "Being able to retrofit diesel engines that are already out there is much quicker than waiting for the development of completely new fuel cell systems that might not be commercially available at a larger scale for at least a decade. With the problem of carbon emissions and climate change, we need some more immediate solutions to deal with the issue of these many diesel engines currently in use.”


For a lower-friction approach – albeit one with less impressive results – there are other retrofit systems being developed, like the HYDI direct injection device, which generates its own hydrogen as you drive, and injects it into the air-fuel mixture to help the diesel ignite faster and more completely. It requires nothing but an occasional water top-up, so it's completely non-reliant on hydrogen fueling infrastructure, and it reduces fuel consumption by 5-13%, while also cutting down on emissions

[lvmci]

Here's the university study...

[Iceni John]

Will it work on older 2-strokes like ours?

The last paragraph sounds intriguing, but there are plenty of electrolysis scams out there.   Any evidence that it does what it claims?   It sounds similar to propane injection.

John

[luvrbus]

I knew they are testing Ammonia for jet fuel,I saw 2 Dodge pickups close to the testing site in Yucca that were Ammonia fueled

[Nova Eona]

I'll believe that 5-13% efficiency boost when I've seen in in action in real conditions.  I'm all for developing technologies and looking to the future, but the folks behind that HYDI are looking to make money and it doesn't sound like that's actually a proven concept yet.  On-the-go electrolysis could be very much like rooftop solar for EVs - sounds great, but the real world numbers may not line up.

Pretty much any engine could be converted to run on hydrogen with some modification, the problem remains, as it always has, safe transportation and scalable, efficient production of the hydrogen itself.

[Lee Bradley]

No, no, no! You just need a good enough story for the government to give you a boatload of cash.

[lvmci]

Not to be confused with Cummins' fuel cell (as featured in the Kenworth T680 shown in back), Cummins hydrogen internal combustion engine, the X15H, got "a lot of positive feedback" recently at ACT Expo in Long Beach, Calif. according to Cummins general manager of hydrogen engine business Jim Nebergall. "It’s really the practicality of it that’s resonated with people the most," Nebergall continued. "It’s familiar in a way and delivers on the zero carbon need that we’re all looking for and it’s a part of a lot of corporate initiatives to drive to zero carbon and this does it in a very practical way, in a familiar way in a very risk averse industry."Tom Quimby

[lvmci]

‘Accidental power trip’ leads scientists to discover new way of generating hydrogenThe NUS team
NUS

Scientist discovers improvement in process to generate hydrogen

We discovered that the redox center for electro-catalytic reaction is switched between metal and oxygen, triggered by light,” said Jun Min. “This largely improves the water electrolysis efficiency.”

It all began with an accidental power trip of the ceiling lights in Jun Min’s laboratory almost three years ago. Back then, the ceiling lights in Jun Min’s research lab were normally turned on for 24 hours. When the lights went off due to a power failure, there was an opportunity to observe something that scientists had never witnessed before.

When the researchers returned the next day, they found that the darkness had influenced the performance of a nickel oxyhydroxide-based material in the water electrolysis experiment. It had fallen drastically.

“This drop in performance, nobody has ever noticed it before, because no one has ever done the experiment in the dark,” said Jun Min. “Also, the literature says that such a material shouldn’t be sensitive to light; light should not have any effect on its properties.”
Jun Min and his team knew they had stumbled on something significant, and they embarked on numerous repeated experiments to test out their new theories. They eventually had enough data to publish a paper.

Now, the team is working on new ways to improve industrial processes to generate hydrogen such as making the cells containing water to be transparent, so as to introduce light into the water splitting process.

[Jim Blackwood]

Yeah well, the flat earth society (or was it the perpetual motion group) have been working on that for over a decade now. Electolysis combined with light bombardment as well as microwave bombardment in the presence of a catalyst to improve efficiencies, so it's nothing new. Look it up on the web if you want to. It's all a part of the conspiracy to run internal combustion engines on water. Or Brown's Gas. The idea is to use a catalyst and other methods to break the oxy-hydrogen bond and then burn the resulting gas mix to produce power. The problem is that to break the bond takes more power than is regenerated by recombining in the burning process so there have been all manner of outlandish attempts to get around that limitation. Considering conservation of mass and energy is basically THE fundamental principal underlying all of physics this is tantamount to breaking the universe. But I say go for it. What have we got to lose?

Jim

[Nova Eona]

The day we can run our cars off water is the day we can scrap most of the power plants and just turn out a new breed of hydroelectric stations.  I'm not holding my breath.

Hydrogen has potential as an energy storage - not generation - medium if some rather daunting supply and transport issues can be solved alongside making the base production cheaper overall.  My bet remains on battery tech and electric vehicles to prove superior, but time will tell.

[Jim Blackwood]

....and then there's good old snake oil. Same game, different players.

Jim

[lvmci]

Hydrogen combustion engines are not that different then gasoline engines, even more similar to CNG or propane powered engines. In Las Vegas and Los Angeles there are fleets of those buses, commercial trucks, cars and private vehicles. I had two my self. In Utah,  CNG is regulated for sale at the same rate as supplying home natural gas. Maybe you could run yours on snake oil, you might start engines mechanical architecture in a whole new direction!
MCI built a fleet of CNG commuter and Flyaway buses, with 800 mile ranges. They were serviced at the Los Alamitos, SoCal shop...

[lvmci]

From car buzz:
Volkswagen Is Working On A Hydrogen Car With 1,242 Miles Of Range
NOV. 15, 2022 6:03 PM ET
BY JARRYD NEVES
 ELECTRIC VEHICLES

A patent filing points to the arrival of a new hydrogen vehicle that could blow the competition out of the water.

Volkswagen is working on a hydrogen-powered car that can travel 1,242 miles on a single tank.

Autocar reports the German automaker has reputedly applied for the patent registration of hydrogen fuel cells and a hydrogen vehicle that may be sold alongside existing electric cars like the ID.4 but also capable of traveling long distances without refueling.

The patent, jointly filed by the automaker and Kraftwerk Tubes, details a ceramic membrane. This is far cheaper than the polymer membrane favored by Toyota and Hyundai and is considered essential to the mass production of hydrogen fuel cells and hydrogen vehicles. Notably, the ceramic membrane works without platinum; the pricey metal has been one of the obstacles standing in the way of fuel cell production.

This is what diesel engine manufacturers have been hinting at...

[chessie4905]

There are patents done in past for buggy whips too. We'll see....

[tr206]

Worth a read.

https://www.inverse.com/innovation/electric-semi-trucks