Improving the thermal efficiency of a T-GDI engine using hydrogen from combined steam and partial oxidation exhaust gas reforming of gasoline under low-load stoichiometric conditions

Hydrogen (H-2) addition is known to have features of increasing the laminar burning velocity (Di Sarli and Di Benedetto, 2007), the resistance of the flame to strain-induced extinction (Di Sarli and Di Benedetto, 2012, 2013), and also enlarging the operating window of stable combustion (Di Sarli, 2014). We experimentally investigated how to improve the thermal efficiency of a turbo gasoline direct injection (T-GDI) engine using H-2 from combined steam and partial oxidation exhaust gas gasoline reforming under low-load stoichiometric conditions. During real driving, 4 and 6 bar brake mean effective pressure (BMEP) at 2,000 rpm are frequently used. Our experimental results show that reformed H-2 improves the brake thermal efficiency (BTE) of T-GDI engines operating at 4 and 6 bar BMEP. Furthermore, the combustion speed (increasing heat release rate) and stability (reducing cyclic variation) were enhanced by reformed H-2, making more heavy exhaust gas recirculation (EGR) operation. Combining steam and partial oxidation exhaust gas gasoline reforming with extra air injection to a reformer had a large effect on the fuel conversion efficiency of the reformer as the engine load decreased. Therefore, the BTE of the T-GDI engine with combined steam and partial oxidation reforming achieved further improvement over steam reforming only at 4 bar BMEP. Nitrogen oxide (NOx) emissions increased with reformed H-2. However, on the basis of the improved combustion stability achieved using reformed H-2, NOx emissions could be reduced further by using a higher EGR rate while enhancing the BTE.