Postdoctoral researcher for highly efficient, directly-injected hydrogen engines

The use of hydrogen as a vector for carbon neutrality is currently receiving a marked surge of interest from a variety of actors, including those involved with policy making, industry and academia. Within Flanders, there is an established roadmap that aims to promote a significant uptake in hydrogen production, storage and usage by 2030. Internationally, the EU and countries such as Australia and Japan have set aggressive goals to utilize hydrogen across a broad range of applications. Similar policies are expected to proliferate in the coming decade, opening avenues for a renewable hydrogen economy and creating substantial opportunities to utilize a sustainable hydrogen supply.

One potential end use of hydrogen is as a fuel source for internal combustion (IC) engines with zero fuel-derived carbon emissions. State-of-the-art hydrogen-fueled engines are still in an early phase of industrial development (e.g. the BeHydro joint venture between ABC and CMB and the hydrogen engine generator set product from Europower Generators) and are not yet ready for widespread commercial uptake. Such engines generally feature injection of hydrogen into the engine’s intake port, with some intended only for use with a combination of hydrogen and diesel fuel. Most laboratory tests with monofuel engines operating with spark-ignited (SI) hydrogen also used port-fuel injection (PFI) technology. Direct injection (DI) of a pure hydrogen fuel stream represents a significant advancement in the commercialization of zero-carbon emitting IC engines.

This project aims to advance technology that will allow high performance, high efficiency DISI H2 systems to be brought to market through a cost-effective solution that can be retrofit to existing reciprocating engines operated with natural gas. This will be accomplished by fabricating an apparatus to adapt a PFI SI natural gas engine to operate on DISI hydrogen with advanced injection strategies (i.e. split injections). Development of this technology will be accomplished through a combination of design and manufacturing, experimental testing and numerical analysis.

The overarching objective of this project is the demonstration of a retrofit solution to convert existing engine hardware to enable zero-carbon emitting hydrogen combustion. Moreover, the project seeks to show that a properly optimized engine with purpose-built injection hardware can realize high fuel efficiencies that are comparable to a hydrogen fuel cell at a lower cost. The key goals are outlined below:

1.     Demonstrate a ‘drop-in’ DISI hydrogen solution to convert an engine generator set configured to operate with port-fueled natural gas

2.     Use heat flux and wall temperature measurements to assess the applicability of current models of wall heat transfer to hydrogen combustion and to understand inefficiencies related to heat loss during combustion

3.     Provide compelling evidence that a PFI SI, natural gas engine converted to operate with DISI hydrogen and split fuel injection can realize high fuel efficiency even at low and medium-load conditions

4.     Characterize the performance capabilities of DISI H2 against state-of-the-art injection systems (i.e. high-load, peak power), motivating further valorization of this technology as the preferred solution for hydrogen-fueled reciprocating engines

The postdoctoral researcher will be involved in all these tasks (design, implementation, testing, processing and analysis) and will work closely with the PI (Prof. Joshua Lacey) as well as other partners at VIVES Kortrijk, where the experimental setup will be physically located. Therefore, it is foreseen that the postdoctoral researcher will be based in Leuven, but perform will some tasks in Kortrijk at relevant times.