Clean-burn engine dodges ever tighter regulations

14 January 2006 by Jessica Marshall

Magazine issue 2534. Subscribe and save
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SOMETHING big is brewing under your car's hood. Car makers around the world are developing
technology that promises to combine the high fuel efficiency of a diesel engine with the low
nitrogen and soot emissions of a modern petrol (gasoline) engine.
But unlike alternative technologies such as fuel cells, the new engine will involve minimal change
to vehicle design. It can be used with both petrol and diesel fuels, and is expected to be on the
road within the next few years.
The idea behind the engine, called controlled auto-ignition, or homogeneous charge
compression ignition (HCCI), is not a new one. Technical problems have prevented the idea
getting off the ground until now, but looming emissions regulations in the US are forcing car
makers to speed up development of the technology.
Car makers have always faced trade-offs when designing engines. Is it better to minimise
emissions or maximise fuel economy? Should they reduce toxic soot-particle emissions from
diesel engines or levels of smog-generating nitrogen oxides (NOx)?
But because new regulations around the world will demand low emissions of all pollutants, tradeoffs won't cut it any more. In the US, soot-particle and NOx emissions must be slashed by nearly
90 per cent in heavy-duty diesel engines by 2010, with particle emissions to be reduced from 0.1
grams per brake horsepower in 2004 to 0.01 g, and NOx from 2.5 g to 0.2 g per brake
horsepower. Engineers feared the targets could not be met with existing technology.
In Europe, vehicle makers have agreed to increase fuel efficiency to reduce carbon dioxide
emissions for new passenger cars, down to 140 grams per kilometre by 2008, a 25 per cent
reduction on 1995 levels of 186 grams per kilometre. Later this year the European Commission
is planning to introduce proposals to reduce this further to 120 grams per kilometre by 2010,
which will require further improvements in fuel efficiency.
HCCI technology is expected to help meet these demands. "This is a renaissance of the internal
combustion engine," says John Pinson, head of diesel engine research at General Motors in
Warren, Michigan.
The technology combines aspects of diesel and petrol engine design. The concept of
homogeneous charge, taken from petrol engines, means fuel and air are well mixed before they
ignite, allowing the fuel to burn uniformly and preventing soot particles from forming. In a typical
diesel engine, by contrast, fuel is injected into the cylinder at the last possible moment, and the
heat generated by compression of the air inside the cylinder then ignites the mixture almost
immediately. As the fuel does not have time to mix well before burning, soot emissions are
higher.
This "compression ignition" is the diesel engine's contribution to HCCI. Combining this with a
homogeneous charge causes ignition to begin at various points throughout the cylinder at
once (see Diagram), helping HCCI combustion to beat both types of standard engine in its near-

zero emissions of smog-forming NOx. Like a diesel engine, HCCI also operates "fuel-lean", in
other words, with more air than is necessary to burn all the fuel. But HCCI can operate at even
more dilute levels than diesel, and this keeps peak temperatures low, below 2000 kelvin. In
standard engines, poorly mixed fuel creates areas where the temperature is high enough for
nitrogen and oxygen in the air to react, forming NOx.
The HCCI engine will also benefit from the higher compression ratios and unthrottled operation
of diesel engines, to give 30 to 40 per cent greater fuel efficiency than petrol engines. This is
because today's petrol engines use throttle valves to control the amount of air and fuel taken into
the engine. But at low loads the valves must be nearly closed, and energy is wasted pulling the
mixture through this nearly closed valve. Diesels do not use a throttle, and instead suck air into
the cylinder during the induction stroke. Taken together, HCCI combustion results in a highefficiency engine with near-zero emissions of soot particles.

All scrubbed up
Modern petrol engines are fitted with catalytic converters, which remove the NOx before the
exhaust leaves the tailpipe. But the same approach does not work for fuel-lean diesel engines,
as the high levels of oxygen in their exhausts make conventional catalysts ineffective.
There are alternatives, such as a tailpipe NOx trap, but these age rapidly and reduce the
vehicle's fuel economy by 5 to 10 per cent, which would be an unacceptable penalty. So as NOx
emission regulations from diesel engines tighten, industry has been struggling to meet them. "A
couple of years ago, we weren't sure it was even possible," says Ford spokesman Nick Twork.
Compared with today's petrol engines, the benefits of HCCI are in the increased fuel economy of
operating without a throttle and at higher compression ratios, and the associated reduction in
greenhouse gas emissions. HCCI petrol engines would have 20 per cent higher fuel efficiency
than these petrol engines, Pinson says.
But getting HCCI on the road has been hampered by difficulties controlling when and how fast
each cylinder fires. A compressed mixture of fuel and air ignites when it reaches a critical level of
temperature and composition. And that depends on factors such as the fuel quality and the
temperature of the cylinders, which varies from cylinder to cylinder within the engine and over
time as the engine warms up. What's more, all of these change with different driving conditions,
for example whether the driver has the pedal to the metal to climb a hill or is coasting home.
Valve-control technology that dictates when the intake and exhaust valves open and shut, onboard computers and electronic fuel injection systems can now allow an engine to detect and
respond to varying conditions to keep the cylinders firing at the appropriate time. That makes
HCCI operation possible.
Researchers are modifying these technologies developed for conventional engines to control the
HCCI ignition process. These include recirculating exhaust gas to preheat the fuel, controlling
the timing and amount of fuel injected into the chamber, and valve-control technology.
Chris Gerdes, an HCCI researcher at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California, has already
achieved HCCI combustion in an engine in the laboratory over rapidly changing operating
conditions using these techniques. "I'm not saying it is an easy problem," he adds, "but I don't
see anything that stands in the way of solving it."

For now though, HCCI has not been made to work at the lowest loads, when there is not enough
fuel present within the mixture for it to automatically ignite. It is also unreliable for operating at
the highest loads, when the large amounts of fuel required release heat so quickly that it
damages the engine.
So the first engines to incorporate the technology will operate in HCCI mode at loads at which it
performs best, and switch over to standard diesel, petrol or even battery-power operation at
other times. As the technology improves, HCCI should increasingly take over.
Whatever its exact form, HCCI is likely to be in use within the next five years, and its importance
will grow. "It is absolutely the single greatest thing that is happening in engine development,"
says Pinson.

What Will be at the pump?

Engines that operate at lower temperatures are desirable because they emit lower levels of
NOx pollution. In principle they could also operate on any fuel. So researchers are looking
into which fuels may offer more stable low-temperature combustion than is possible with
petrol or diesel HCCI combustion.
"If you're not constrained by gas or diesel, you can do amazing things," says Charles
Mueller, who studies fuels at Sandia National Laboratories in Livermore, California. Fuels
that contain a lot of oxygen burn more stably at low temperatures than diesel or gasoline,
but these are more costly and may not be compatible with some engine parts, as they may
react with the rubber seals. Even if a cheap, compatible fuel is found, one big issue remains
- changing the established infrastructure for refining oil to produce petrol and diesel.
As renewable fuels such as ethanol and biodiesel gain a footing, and as petrol and diesel
increasingly come from heavier crudes and sources such as oil sands and shale oils,
refiners will change the fuels they make, Mueller believes.
Another fuel that researchers are investigating for use in the internal combustion engine is
hydrogen, which could all but eliminate vehicle emissions.
Hydrogen will burn over a huge composition range, from 4 per cent to 75 per cent hydrogen
in air. Like HCCI, this allows hydrogen-burning engines to operate at low temperatures and
to avoid NOx emissions.