Experimental implementation of a control scheme to feed a hydrogen-enriched E10 blend to an internal combustion engine

In this work, a control scheme formulation for the injection of a hydrogen-enriched E10 blend (10% of ethanol and 90% of gasoline) in an internal combustion (IC) spark-ignition (SI) engine is presented, the proposed scheme was experimentally tested. The hydrogen was produced on-demand by an electrolyzer. It is considered that only 8% of the overall air entering through the throttle valve reacts with the hydrogen gas, maintaining the hydrogen-air stoichiometric ratio at 34.3. To regulate the hydrogen gas production, the feed current to the electrolyzer was controlled by a feedback PI controller. The dosage of the E10 blend was controlled by the injection timing according to the air-E10 stoichiometric ratio (14.04). Using the hydrogen-enriched E10 blend the resulting air-fuel stoichiometric ratio in the exhaust gas emission was 14.8. The experimental results showed that the E10 blend consumption was reduced. In addition, the thermal and combustion efficiencies were increased and the braking power was not reduced.