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Nonthermal Plasma-assisted Diesel Reforming and Injection of the Reformed Gas into a Diesel Engine for Clean Combustion  

Kim, Seong-Soo (Waters Pyrolysis Research Center, Korea Institute of Energy Research)
Chung, Soo-Hyun (Waters Pyrolysis Research Center, Korea Institute of Energy Research)
Kim, Jin-Gul (Department of Chemical Engineering, Soonchunhyang University)
Publication Information
Journal of Korean Society of Environmental Engineers / v.27, no.4, 2005 , pp. 394-401 More about this Journal
Abstract
A nonthermal plasma-assisted fuel reformer was developed and the effects of operating variables on the performance of this reformer were studied. The $H_2$-rich reformed gas from the reformer was injected into a diesel engine under an idle condition and the effects of the amount of injected gas on the NO and soot reduction were investigated. It was found that with increasing electric power consumption, the degree of facility of ignition of the reforming reaction in the reformer could be enhanced. The performance of the reformer including $H_2$ concentration, $H_2$ recovery, and energy conversion was affected only by the O/C mole ratio. This was because the equilibrium reaction temperature was governed by the O/C mole ratio. With increasing O/C mole ratio, the $H_2$ recovery and energy conversion passed through the maximum values of 33.4% and 66%, respectively, at an O/C mole ratio between 1.2 and 1.5. The reason why the $H_2$ recovery and energy conversion increased with increasing O/C mole ratio when the O/C mole ratio was lower than $1.2{\sim}1.5$ appeared to be that the complete oxidation reaction occurred more enough with increasing O/C mole ratio in this low O/C mole ratio range and accordingly the reaction temperature increased. Whereas the reason why the $H_2$ recovery and energy conversion decreased with increasing O/C mole ratio when the O/C mole ratio was higher than $1.2{\sim}1.5$ appeared to be that the complete oxidation reaction was further advanced and the $H_2$ recovery and energy conversion decreased. As the weight ratio of reformed diesel to total diesel which entered the diesel engine was increased to $18.2{\sim}23.5%$, NO and soot reduction efficiencies increased and reached as values high as 68.5% and 23.5%, respectively.
Keywords
Nonthermal Plasma; Fuel Reformer; NO; Soot; Diesel Engine;
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