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JSAE 20077XXX

SAE 2007-01-YYYY

Test of blends of hydrogen and natural gas in a light


duty vehicle
Giovanni Pede, Ennio Rossi
Italian National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and the Environment (ENEA)
Department of Energy Technologies

Maria Chiesa
Catholic University of Brescia (Italy)
Environmental Physics Department

Fernando Ortenzi
DITS Dipartimento di Idraulica Trasporti e Strade,
University La Sapienza,Rome (Italy)

Copyright 2007 Society of Automotive Engineers of Japan, Inc. and Copyright 2007 SAE International

ABSTRACT
Hydrogen-enriched combustion has been studied
by several institutions and companies over the last
three decades. The purpose of adding hydrogen to
conventional fuels is to extend the lean limit of
combustion because hydrogen improves flame
stability and allows a lower temperature
combustion. Even with stoichiometric mixture,
HCNG advantages had been demonstrated, since
blends determine a reduction of noxious emissions.
In the framework of an EU project called BONG-HY,
bench tests with HCNG on a natural gas vehicle
had been carried on at ENEA.
Results of lab tests show a fair improvement of the
efficiency and CO2 emissions as well as an overall
improvement regarding local pollutants.

INTRODUCTION
The growing sector of transports rises a big alarm
either for the day-by-day increasing number of
vehicles and for the sensible contribution to the
degradation of air quality in urban areas, as well as
for the global pollution.
In Italy, with beyond 35 million of circulating vehicles,
the consumption of primary energy, all coming from
fossil sources, accounts for more than 30%, which
roughly leads to a corresponding 30% increase in
CO2 emissions. The European Union committed to
the goal of reducing its dependence on imported
fossil fuels (oil, natural gas, coal), by using at least
20% of alternative fuels within the year 2020; the
corresponding commitment in the reduction of
Greenhouse Gases (GHG) is the well-known 8%

with respect to 1990 by 2012, as required by the


Kyoto Protocol.
In Europe the sector of transports is responsible for
the 25% of CO2 emissions, 40% of which is related
to the vehicles circulating in urban areas. External
costs due to the degradation of air quality related to
transports had been estimated in about 11.7% of
EU GDP, corresponding to an outstanding value of
360 /year per citizen.
Those alarming data have to be added to the
contribution to the total emissions from the
energetic sector (carbon dioxide, natural gas,
nitrogen oxides, sulphur, aromatic compounds,.),
which amounts at about 50% of the total
contribution. Deaths caused by the smog, due to
particulates and other emissions, are about 8000
per year just for Italy; on the other side, the global
change becomes a real problem, with an
increasing concern about GHG emissions.
Nowadays a last-generation Euro4 car emits slightly
less than 150 grCO2/km, with scarce perspectives
to be able to reduce, with fossil fuels, that value
very much.
It had been worldwide agreed that the introduction
of hydrogen as a new fuel could have contributed
to the realization of a sustainable energy system in
the long term (2050 and beyond); according to this
vision, emissions of both global and local pollutants
can be maintained under safe values.
Even if the transition towards a hydrogen-based
economy will be surely very long, its sustainability is
achievable since now, also considering the
limitations in the substitution of conventional fuels
with alternative ones, less polluting. Also the
contribution of the introduction of biomass-derived

METHANE-HYDROGEN MIXTURES
A good opportunity in the short term can be
represented by the utilization of blends of hydrogen
with other fuels, first of all with natural gas (HCNG).
When used in an Internal Combustion Engine (ICE),
even the addition of a small amount of hydrogen to
natural gas (5-30% by volume, that means ~1.510% by energy) leads to many advantages,
because of some particular physical and chemical
properties of the two fuels.

Because of the characteristics of hydrogen, HCNG,


despite its higher LHV per kg, has a lower LHV per
Nm3, depending on the hydrogen content. Therefore,
a natural gas engine, when fuelled with HCNG,
shows a lower power output, while maintaining its
better efficiency.
LHV (MJ/kg)

60

LHV (MJ/m3)

50
40
LHV

fuels, for a limited quota of total consumption, is


counterbalanced by the still growing demand of
vehicles in the world ( see Fig. 1 at the end) [1].
Even if its difficult to forecast the future concerning
the next decades, it has been agreed worldwide that
climate change is closely connected with GHG
emissions, so we may ask for some important
decisions for the beyond-Kyoto years. The
stabilization of CO2 concentration at values not
higher than 550 ppm (todays value is 380 ppm)
requires a strong emissions reduction: some of the
IPCC scenarios aiming at that values shows a
required decrease of GHG of 40-60% with respect
to 1990, which means a real reduction of 70-90%
of the emissions with respect to the business-asusual forecast.
Such a reduction wont ever be achieved by using
any actual available sustainable technology.
Nevertheless, a cultural shift will be necessary, in
order to reach that goal: the introduction of
hydrogen as an energy carrier seems to be a real
contribution to that goal, making possible, in the
long term, the realization of a cleaner World.

30
20
10
0
0

10

20
% volume H2

30

40

Fig.3
In case of turbocharged engines, power output can
be increased again by a simple increase of the
charging pressure, possible even because of the
higher reluctance to detonation of hydrogen.
Additionally, CO2 emissions had been reduced not
only as a result of the substitution of CNG by
hydrogen. The special properties of hydrogen as a
combustion stimulant can produce leverage factors
much greater than 1 by improving fossil fuels--not
just displacing them. Hydrogen leverage is defined
as the following ratio : (% Emissions Reduction)/(%
Energy Supplied as Hydrogen).
The increased efficiency makes this value higher
than 1. An obvious benefit of the leverage effect is
that a CO2 reduction is possible even if needed
hydrogen is produced by natural gas without any
sequestration of CO2.

HCNG15

STATE OF THE ART


lambda=1

CH4

First experiences of methane-hydrogen mixture,


with vehicles, were carried on in the framework of a
programme financed by DOE and NREL,
in
Colorado, the "Denver Hythane Project, from 1991
to 1993, whose results are shown in the table
below:
Table 1 Denver Hythane Project

Fig.2
Methane has a slow flame speed while hydrogen
has a flame speed about eight times higher; when
the air/fuel ratio (lambda) is much higher than for
the stoichiometric condition the combustion of
methane is not as stable as with HCNG. As a
consequence of the addition of hydrogen to natural
gas an overall better combustion had been verified,
even in a wide range of operating conditions
(lambda, compression ratio, etc.), finding the
following main benefits:

a higher efficiency

lower emissions

Gasoline
ULEV
Natural gas
Hythane

NMHC
(g/mile)
0.59
0.04
0.01
0.01

CO
(g/mile)
14.1
1.7
2.96
0.7

NOx
(g/mile)
2.2
0.2
0.9
0.2

In a next phase, according to an exhaustive review


by R. Sierens and E. Rosseel, by University of Gent,
Belgium that relates to laboratory testings in the
second half of 90, many other experiences are
recorded:

Hoekstra et al. (1994, 1995) examined a V8 Chevrolet


350 engine at one particular speed (12.7 kW, 1700 rpm)
with different hydrogen enriched compressed natural gas
mixtures, to simulate a light-duty truck. They found
extremely low NOx values at =1.6 ( = 0.625) for the 28
and 36 percent H2 blends
Swain et al. (1993) and Yusuf et al. (1997) made tests
with a 20 percent hydrogen80 percent natural gas blend
on two engines (2L Nissan and 1.6L Toyota) under light
load conditions...For blended fuel, a 10 to 14 percent
improvement in the brake thermal efficiencies over
methane was found.
Larsen and Wallace (1997) and Cattelan and Wallace
(1994) tested a turbocharged 3.1L V6 engine under mid
and high load conditions with a 15 percent H2 hythane
blend and found similar trends (for the exhaust
concentrations in ppm) as the light load tests by Swain et
al. (1993) and Yusuf et al. (1997). Raman et al. (1994)
described lean burn and stoichiometric combustion tests
with a three-way catalyst. For the lean burn (5.7L GM V8)
engine it was again shown that hydrogen extends the lean
limit of natural gas, thereby enabling lower NOx emissions
without excessive THC. When the BMEP advantage of
hythane is sacrified by retarding the spark advance until
methane and hythane produce equal BMEP, the NOx
concentrations drop significantly. Bell and Gupta (1997)
described tests with lean mixtures of natural gas blended
with 5, 10, and 15 percent hydrogen on a 4 cylinder 2.5L
GM engine at 2200 rpm and 50 percent WOT.Again the
subject of the research was to extend the lean operating
limit of the engine and to investigate the performance and
emissions characteristics of the SI engine at these
conditions. At the natural gas lean operating limit =1.56
( = 0.64) hydrogen addition allowed an increase in power
(up to 47 percent again with 15 percent H2) due to an
increase in the average flame speed maintaining a
sufficient heat release rate for good combustion
qualityBrake thermal efficiencies (15 percent H2)
were higher than for the other fuelling cases at
corresponding equivalence ratios..
During the last years, also a number of fleet testings
were carried on. The recent Hythane ((24.8% vol.
Hydrogen, Frank Lynch, Hydrogen Components,
Inc., HCI), bus demonstration project at Sunline
transit in California used a 7% hydrogen by energy
formula and the NOx emissions were reduced by
50%. Based on success with Hythane buses, and
the cost-effectiveness of Hythane compared to
available fuel cell technology, a number of projects
are currently carried on all around the world, like the
Beijing Hythane Bus Projet, whose demonstration
phase will be to adapt 30 natural gas engines for
Hythane operation. In Sweden, operation with
Hythane and natural gas had been compared for
a heavy-duty natural gas engine and the study had
revealed a small increase in efficiency.
Subsequently, a couple of buses had been tested
on the road with blend with a 8% hydrogen content
(by volume). Tests during full load and constant
load demonstrated a 20-30% reduction in HCemissions and higher power with mixture.
Transients bring to 50% less emissions both for HC
and CO but a 50% increase of NOx. From the
energy point of view, there is a 14% fuel reduction.

EXPERIMENTAL SET UP
In the framework of an EU Interreg IIIC project
called BONG-HY (parallel application of Blends Of
Natural Gas and Hydrogen in internal combustion
engines and fuel cells) bench tests on a natural gas

vehicle had been carried on in one lab of the


Casaccia Reasearch Center of ENEA. The main
Italian partners involved in the project had been the
Municipality of Brescia (lead partner), ASM SPA
(the energy multiutility of Brescia), the Catholic
University of Brescia , the Universities of Rome Tor
Vergata and La Sapienza and ENEA.
The light duty commercial vehicle under test had
been a Daily, belonging to the ASM fleet, that had
been mainly modified in the control system (ECU)
for the test. Its engine was a 2.8 L NG fuelled,
manufactured by IVECO (see Tab.2 for
specifications).
Tab.2 Engine specifications
2800 cm3
12.2
94.4 mm
100 mm
78 kW @ 3800 Rpm
220 Nm @ 2200 Rpm
Euro III

Displaced volume
Compression ratio
Bore
Stroke
Rated power
Max Torque
Emission Standard

The roller bench comes from APICOM; its control


system has been recently upgraded by Assing.
The cycle adopted for the characterisation had
been the urban part of NEDC (repeated at least 20
times) and the value for the vehicle mass had been
set to 3500 kg; therefore the test had been more
severe than the homologation one. Therefore, the
results are not directly comparable with OEM data,
but surely more significative for the guide cycle of
the ASM vehicles that could use these blends in the
future (waste collecting vehicles).

Fig.4
Engine ECU Tuning tool
The tool used to modify the engine maps is called
RACE2000, elaborated by Dimensione Sport. This
software is able to transform data contained in the
original eprom in easily modificable electronic
mapping. Along with the software cited above, the
MET16 simulator, able to modify the spark advance,
the injection time and other parameters
instantaneously, had been used too.
The programming of the final EPROM had been
obtained thanks to the EMP21 EPROM programmer
produced by Needhams Electronics.

MEASUREMENT SYSTEM

measures, they were weighed before and after drive


tests (ECE 15) on our roller bench that lasted a
significative time.

Cylinder pressure
A single cylinder head had been equipped with a
piezo-electric pressure transducer hosted on a
special spark plug and signals had been processed
by a twochannel amplyfier while the angular position
had been measured with a inductive crank-angle
calculator
module
for
on-line
indicating
measurements. The equipment had been
manufactured by AVL, all data had been collected
by a Yokogawa DL 716 digital scope. In the picture
below, an example (1500 r.p.m., 50 % at medium
loads) of preliminary testing with pure methane is
given, for the engine model validation.
Fig.7

EXPERIMENTS

Fig.5
Emissions
Emissions had been measured using a HORIBA
OBS-1300 integrated system. This is composed by
a
MEXA-1170HNDIR
(Dispersive
Infra-red
Detectors) that measures in real time CO, CO2 and
HC and by a MESA-720NOx (ZrO2 technology), for
the evaluation of nitric oxides concentrations and
air-fuel-ratio (AFR); furthermore, a heated flowmeter
(pitot type) mounted on the sampling probe permits
to calculate the mass ( see Fig. 6).
Fuel Consumption
Two blends had been tested, characterised by 10
and 15% by volume in hydrogen (HCNG10 and
HCNG15) and used as a fuel for the urban part of
the ECE-15 driving cycle. Pure methane of certified
composition and certified mixtures had been used
for the tests. For characterization tests, single
cylinders had been used. To assure the requested
precision with regards to energy consumption

The main parameters that had been investigated


are lambda (with values of 1 and 1.4), different
spark advance angles and different values for the
enrichment of the blends during transients.
As main exhaust parameter which had been
considered as a constraint that had not to be
overcome in case of stoichiometric set up is NOx
emission. Actually, hydrogen addition implies a
higher laminar combustion speed and this causes
an increase of combustion temperature and
therefore higher NOx emissions . On the contrary,
CO and HC emissions are always lower , thanks
both to the lower quantity of carbon and to the
improved combustion process.
For lean-burn mixtures, not only NOx , but also HC
monitoring had been a decisive parameter that had
been taken into consideration. Actually, also HC
emissions can raise due to the fact that laminar
combustion speed decreases remarkably. This
produces a not complete oxidation of HC. Moreover
higher gas cooling during expansion delays the fuel
oxidation, in particularly near cylinders walls and in
the most hidden parts of the combustion chamber.
The first tests using mixtures to feed the engine,
carried without any modification of the injection
control map, had confirmed the foreseen NOx
emissions increase related to the increasing
combustion speed. This fact had required a
modification of the spark ignition time. In Fig. 8 it is
possible to see that a spark advance reduction of
only 3 degrees (which means a little retard
compared to the case of pure methane) brings to a
large decrease of NOx emissions, without torque
reduction.

900

680

NOx
Torque

800

660

700

620
500
600
400
580
300

Torque Nm

640

600

560

200

540

100

In the following pictures the obtained values of the


first 6 months of lab tests for both the fuel
consumption and the pollutants and CO2 emissions
(for different operating conditions) are represented .
Figures 11 and 12 shows fuel consumption and
CO2 emissions for different hydrogen contents in
HCNG while Fig. 13 represents the local emissions
for the same blends.

520

500
-8

-6

-4

-2

Fuel and CO2 reduction, %

Advance variation degree

20,00

Fig.8
%

15,00

Notwithstanding the above reported spark ignition


time correction, engine performances with methanehydrogen blends had remained not acceptable
during ECE driving cycle in terms of emissions, due
to the too high NOx emission values, compared to
methane. A more detailed examination of the
engine behaviour during transients shows that fuel
enrichment (as mapped in ECU) had been too low,
therefore actual reaches values comprised
between 1.1-1.2. As a result, NOx emissions had
increased too much. For this reason, a map
correction has been adopted for acceleration
phases. This had been allowed by a dedicated
function of electronic injection unit. In this way it had
been possible to decrease NOX emissions to
desired values, lower than figures obtained with
methane ( see Fig.9).
For a lean burn blend, research of better AFR (we
wanted to reach a value of 100 ppm, the same of
pure methane) was limited from = 1 to = 1,45.
Furthermore, the increase of AFR values causes
very important power losses, as shown in Fig. 10.
Therefore, =1,45 had been the maximum value
initially fixed (this value substantially reduces NOx)
and a series of tests had been produced changing
the spark ignition advance to optimize the control
strategy in order to increase the performances.
Unfortunately, NOx had grown in an exponential
way, while power gain hadnt been significative. It
had also been decided that it is more convenient to
adopt a lower AFR value without changing the spark
advance instead of setting a high together with
optimal advance timing.

0,00
HCNG10 =1 HCNG10 =1,4 HCNG15 =1 HCNG15 =1,4

Fuel reduction

Energy saving, %
12,0
10,0

8,0

2,0
0,0
HCNG10 =1

300
200

500
100
0
0.95

1.05

1.15

1.25
Lambda

Fig.10

1.35

0
1.45

HCNG15 =1

HCNG15 =1,4

CONCLUSIONS

Torque Nm

1000

HCNG10 =1,4

Fig. 12

500
400

6,0
4,0

600

1500

CO2 reduction

Fig. 11

700

Nox
Torque

10,00
5,00

2000

NOx ppm

NOx ppm

RESULTS

700

The analysis of the results of the lab tests can be


considered encouraging for the continuation of the
activities, even if the tests had just covered a short
period of time (a few months).
Its well known that the reduction of fuel
consumption brings to the enhancement of the
pollutants and greenhouses emissions; therefore,
the optimum condition can be found dealing with the
problem with different approaches, i.e. with the use
of lean blends in the first case ( for the fuel
consumption reduction) and with the use of
stoichiometric blends in the second case
( emissions reduction).
Actually, these two approaches correspond to the
different conceptual ideas adopted by VOLVO
(whose engines are mounted on the urban buses of
the Malmo Hythane project) and by IVECO (the
manufacturer of the DAILY vehicle used for our
experimentations) for the realisation of their natural
gas motorisation. In our case, dealing with an
IVECO engine, that had been designed in order to
work in stoichiometric conditions, the adoption of a
lean combustion strategy had brought us to
unsatisfactory
results:
actually,
since
no
changements in the engine hardware had been
made, as for example the compression ratio

enhancement and/or the engine overfuelling, with


respect to the vehicles behaviour, a reduction of
the engine specific power had been verified, beyond
to the reduction of the power due to the inferior
energy content in volume ( - 11% for the blend with
a 15% hydrogen content by volume).
Though, for both the combustion strategies adopted,
the vehicle had succeeded in doing the urban cycle,
the engine had worked regularly and the obtained
results had been encouraging in terms of both
consumptions reduction and pollutants and CO2
emission reduction as demonstrated even by the
foreign lab and road tests.
The pollutants emission reduction had been very
promising mainly working in stoichiometric
conditions.
Finally, even considering the Swedish works ( that
dont present problems of power losses with the use
of blends) we can say that, starting from the existent
motorisations, the strategies that have to be
adopted for the modifications must be coherent with
the base constructor philosophy; in our case, we
had taken into consideration the IVECO philosophy.
Consequently, we consider the obtained results with
stoichiometric conditions as the base results of a
possible development of the project that foresees
the field experimentation of vehicles with an IVECO
motorisation (for example, industrial vehicles for the
transports of goods or waste collecting vehicles).
In this framework, the reduction of the energetic
consumptions increases with blends with a 15%
hydrogen content by volume, in a way more than
proportional with the increase of hydrogen content,
while for the pollutants emissions a significative
difference between the use of blends with a 10% or
15% hydrogen content by volume hadnt been
verified.

REFERENCES
[1] The Sustainable Mobility Project, Mobility
2030: Meeting the challenges to
sustainability, World Business Council for
Sustainable Development, Switzerland,
2005
[2] Riddell, B., Malmo Hydrogen and
CNG/Hydrogen filling station and Hythane
bus project, Carl Bro Energiekonsult AB,
Sweden, 2004
[3] Tunestal P., Einewall P., Stenlaas O.,
Johansson B., Possible short term
introduction of hydrogen as vehicle
fuel/fuel additive, P. Duret and Editions
Technip, Paris, 2004,
[4] Karner D., Francfort J., Freedom car &
vehicle technologies program Advanced
vehicle testing activity- Arizona public
service- Alternative fuel (Hydrogen) pilot
plant, US DOE, 2003
[5] F. Linch, Hythane: a bridge to an ultraclean
renewable hydrogen energy system, Atti
del Workshop IEA in Denver, 1991
[6] James Cannon, Paving the way to Natural
Gas Vehicles, INFORM, Inc., 1993
[7] R.
Sierens,
E.
Rosseel,
Variable
Composition
Hydrogen/Natural
Gas

mixtures for increased engine efficiency


and decreased emissions, Journal of
Engineering for Gas turbines and Power,
2000,
[8] Hoekstra R. L., Collier, K and Mulligan N.,
Demonstration of Hydrogen Mixed Gas
Vehicles, Proceedings, 10th World
Hydrogen Energy Conference, Cocoa
Beach, Vol. 3, anno 1994
[9] Hoekstra R. L., Van Blarigan P., and
Mulligan N., NOx emissions and
efficiency of Hydrogen, Natural Gas and
Hydrogen/Natural Gas blended fuels,
SAE Paper 961103, 1996
[10] Swain M. R., Yusuf M., Dulger Z., and
Swain M. N., The effects of hydrogen
addition on natural gas engine operation,
SAE Paper 932775, 2003
[11] Larsen J. F., and Wallace J. S.,
Comparison of emissions and efficiency
of a turbocharged lean-burn natural gas
and hythane-fuelled engine, ASME
Journal of Engineering for gas turbines
and power, Vol. 119, 1997
[12] Yusuf M., Swain M. R., Swain M. N., and
Dulge Z., An approach to lean burn
natural gas fuelled engine through
hydrogen addition, Proceedings, 30th
ISATA Conference, Florence, paper
97EL081, 1997
[13] Raman V., Hansel J., Fulton J., Lynch F.,
and Bruderly D., Hythane an ultraclean
transportation fuel, Proceedings, 10th
World Hydrogen Energy Conference,
Cocoa Beach Vol. 3 , pp. 1797-1806,
1994
[14] Bell S. R., and Gupta M., Extension of the
lean operating limit for natural gas fuelling
of a spark ignited engine using hydrogen
blending, Combustion Science and
Technology, Vol. 123, pp. 23-48, 1997

Fig. 1

Fig. 6

60

NOx After
NOx before
Speed After
Speed Before

1000

50
40

NOx ppm

800

30
600
20
400

10

200

-10
0

10

20

30

40
50
Time s.

60

70

80

90

Fig. 9

Emissions, g/km
1,20
1,00
0,80
g/km

Vehicle Speed Km/h

1200

0,60
0,40
0,20
0,00
NG

HCNG10 =1

HCNG10
=1,4

CO

HC

Fig. 13

NOX

HCNG15 =1

HCNG15
=1,4

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