Tailor-made fuels for future engine concepts

Tailor-made fuels for future engine concepts

Type	Journal Article
Author	Fabian Hoppe
Author	Benedikt Heuser
URL	Free Full Text Source:  http://jer.sagepub.com/content/17/1/16
Volume	17
Issue	1
Pages	16-27
Publication	International Journal of Engine Research
Date	2016-01-01
Abstract	The Cluster of Excellence Tailor-Made Fuels from Biomass at RWTH Aachen University establishes innovative and sustainable processes for the conversion of whole plants into molecularly well-defined fuels exhibiting tailored properties for low-temperature combustion engine processes, enabling high efficiency and low pollutant emissions. The concept of fuel design, that is, considering fuel’s molecular structure to be a design degree of freedom, aims for the simultaneous optimization of fuel production and combustion systems. Authors present three examples of tailor-made biofuels. For spark ignition engines, both 2-methylfuran and 2-butanone show increased knock resistance compared to RON95 gasoline, thus enabling a higher compression ratio and an efficiency gain of up to 20% at full-load operation. Moreover, both fuels comprise a good mixture formation superior to the one of ethanol, especially under difficult boundary conditions. For compression ignition engines, 1-octanol enables a remarkable reduction in engine-out soot emissions compared to standard diesel fuel due to the high oxygen content and lower reactivity. This advantage is achieved without sacrificing the high indicated efficiency and low NOX emissions.