An innovative method of ammonia use in a light-duty automotive diesel engine to enhance diesel combustion, performance, and emissions

This study investigated the novel method of ammonia use in a light-duty automotive diesel engine. An emulsification technique and ammonia solution are combined and adopted to prepare ammonia solution in diesel emulsion referred to as emulsified diesel-ammonia solution (EDAS) and tested under similar diesel combustion conditions. The ammonia solution concentration in EDAS was fixed as 10% by volume (EDAS10) with 2% v/v of surfactant to avoid excessive ammonia slip, corrosive effects, and oxides of nitrogen (NOx) formation. The aim of this study is to explore the effect of presence of hydrogen in EDAS10 on the diesel combustion process under high-pressure multiple injection strategies. Experiments were performed at low, medium, and high loads at the same combustion phasing (CA50) and total energy input as that of diesel to investigate the influence of EDAS10 on combustion, performance, and emissions. The start of injection of EDAS10 and exhaust gas recirculation rate was varied to attain the CA50. The combustion results showed that the EDAS10 blend had increased the heat release rate in the premixed combustion phase with shortened duration and decreased the heat release rate in the diffusion combustion phase compared to neat diesel operation. Double and triple injection of EDAS10 blend also increased the indicated and brake thermal efficiencies by about 4–7% than neat diesel operation. A decrease in 50–67% unburnt emissions, 8–13% decrease in smoke, and 7–19% increase in NO emissions, 2–10% increase in CO2emissions were observed with EDAS10 when compared to diesel operation.