Thermodynamic analysis of employing argon as the diluent and adding hydrogen in an HCCI ammonia engine: Ignition characteristics and performances of combustion and NO emissions

Abstract

Ammonia is an efficient hydrogen energy carrier and a potential zero-carbon fuel for internal combustion engines. However, the poor ignition and combustion performances of ammonia limit its further application in homogeneous charge compression ignition engines. This study proposes to employ an inert gas argon as a diluent to improve ammonia's ignition and combustion performances. Furthermore, the effect of adding hydrogen is also investigated under a wide calculation range of compression ratio, excess oxygen ratio, and argon ratio through thermodynamic analysis. The calculation results indicate that replacing nitrogen with argon can significantly shorten the ignition delay time and promote the thermal conversion efficiency and power density. Under a specific condition (compression ratio = 19 and excess oxygen ratio = 3.0), when replacing air with an argon-oxygen mixture of argon/oxygen ratio = 79: 21, the ignition delay time of pure ammonia reduces from 700 ms to 0.31 ms, the thermal conversion efficiency increases from 65.1% to 78.2%, and the power density raises by approximately 20%. Nevertheless, the NO volume fraction grows by 1179 × 10−6 VOL due to the high temperature. The ignition delay time drops with the increase of hydrogen blend ratio. With an initial condition of 1250 K and 3.0 MPa, the ignition delay time decreases by 81%–95% when the hydrogen blend ratio is elevated from 5% to 20%. However, adding hydrogen also falls the thermal conversion efficiency and elevates the NO volume fraction. A hydrogen blend ratio of 5% is an excellent tradeoff value.