Combustion and emissions performance of a hybrid hydrogen–gasoline engine at idle and lean conditions

Due to the narrow flammability of gasoline, pure gasoline-fueled spark-ignited (SI) engines always encounter partial burning or even misfire at lean conditions. Gasoline engines tend to suffer poor combustion and expel large emissions at idle conditions because of the high variation in the intake charge and low combustion temperature. Comparatively, hybrid hydrogen engines (HHE) fueled with the mixtures of hydrocarbon fuels and hydrogen seem to achieve lower emissions and gain higher thermal efficiencies than the original hydrocarbon-fueled engines due to the wide flammability and high flame speed of hydrogen. Since a HHE only requires a small amount of hydrogen, it also removes concerns about the high production and storage costs of hydrogen. This paper introduced an experiment conducted on a four-cylinder SI gasoline engine equipped with a hydrogen port-injection system to explore the performance of a hybrid hydrogen–gasoline engine (HHGE) at idle and lean conditions. The injection timings and durations of hydrogen and gasoline were governed by a hybrid electronic control unit (HECU) developed by the authors, which can be adjusted freely according to the commands from a calibration computer. During the test, hydrogen flow rate was varied to ensure that hydrogen volume fraction in the intake was constantly kept at 3%. For the specified hydrogen addition level, gasoline flow rate was reduced to make the engine operate at idle and lean conditions with various excess air ratios. The test results demonstrated that cyclic variations in engine idle speed and indicated mean effective pressure were eased with hydrogen enrichment. The indicated thermal efficiency was obviously higher for the HHGE than that for the original gasoline engine at idle and lean conditions. The indicated thermal efficiency at an excess air ratio of 1.37 was increased from 13.81% for the original gasoline engine to 20.20% for the HHGE with a 3% hydrogen blending level. Flame development and propagation periods were also evidently shortened after hydrogen blending. Moreover, HC, CO and NOx emissions were all improved after hydrogen enrichment at idle and lean conditions. Therefore, the HHE methodology is an effective and promising way for improving engine idle performance at lean conditions.