Engine design based on novel thermodynamic cycle

Researcher:
Prof. Leonid Tartakovsky | Mechanical Engineering
Prof. Moshe Sheintuch | Chemical Engineering

Categories:

Automation, Mobility and Aerospace | Sustainability and Energy

The Technology

Internal combustion engines (ICE) will remain main propulsion technology for various applications for many years.
The known challenges of using internal combustion engines are security of energy supply, climate change issues and air pollution. The aim of this technology is to deal with all those issues by reduction of energy consumption, pollution mitigation and use of renewable energy sources. The new technology is an add-on to an existing ICE and will allow use of renewable non-fossil fuels of low carbon intensity. Such is the on-board high-pressure thermochemical recuperation (TCR) of alcohols (ethanol, methanol etc.) utilizing thermal energy of the engine exhaust gas to sustain endothermic reactions of fuel reforming to a gaseous hydrogen-rich reformate.

Advantages

  • Add-on to existing ICE
  • Make catalytic converter redundant
  • Efficient
  • Reduction of CO2, hydrocarbons and NOx emissions
  • Avoiding the engine power loss, backfire, pre-ignition, and ensuring the charge stratifying possibility
  • Dramatic reduction of mechanical energy investment to reformate compression with the subsequent gain in energy efficiency
  • Enabling engine feeding with reformate under cold start, idle, low-load and transient operation regimes, even when the reformer cannot produce sufficient quantity of the reformate fuel
  • Optimized waste heat utilization

Applications and Opportunities

  • Internal combustion engines
  • Hybrid systems combining fuel cell and internal combustion engine
arrow Business Development Contacts
Shikma Litmanovitz
Director of Business Development, Physical Science