Engineers from UNSW Sydney have successfully converted a diesel engine to run as a hydrogen-diesel hybrid engine – reducing CO2 emissions by more than 85% in the process.

The team, led by Professor Shawn Kook from the School of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering, spent around 18 months developing the Hydrogen-Diesel Direct Injection Dual-Fuel System which means existing diesel engines can run using 90% hydrogen as fuel.

The researchers say that any diesel engine used in trucks and power equipment in the transportation, agriculture and mining industries could ultimately be retrofitted to the new hybrid system in just a couple of months.

Green hydrogen, which is produced using clean renewable energy sources such as wind and solar, is much more environmentally friendly than diesel.

And in a paper published in the International Journal of Hydrogen Energy, Prof. Kook’s team show that using their patented hydrogen injection system reduces CO2 emissions to just 90g/kWh – 85.9 per cent below the amount produced by the diesel-powered engine.

“This new technology significantly reduces CO2 emissions from existing diesel engines, so it could play a big part in making our carbon footprint much smaller, especially in Australia with all our mining, agriculture and other heavy industries where diesel engines are widely used,” Shawn says.

“We have shown that we can take those existing diesel engines and convert them into cleaner engines that burn hydrogen fuel.

“Being able to retrofit diesel engines that are already out there is much quicker than waiting for the development of completely new fuel cell systems that might not be commercially available at a larger scale for at least a decade.”

The UNSW team’s solution to the problem maintains the original diesel injection into the engine but adds a hydrogen fuel injection directly into the cylinder.

The collaborative research, performed with Dr Shaun Chan and Professor Evatt Hawkes, found that specifically timed hydrogen direct injection controls the mixture condition inside the cylinder of the engine, which resolves the problem of harmful nitrogen oxide emissions that have been a major hurdle for commercialisation of hydrogen engines.

Importantly, the new Hydrogen-Diesel Direct Injection Dual-Fuel System does not require extremely high-purity hydrogen which must be used in alternative hydrogen fuel cell systems and is more expensive to produce.

And compared to existing diesel engines, an efficiency improvement of more than 26% has been shown in the diesel-hydrogen hybrid.

That improved efficiency is achieved by independent control of hydrogen direct injection timing, as well as diesel injection timing, enabling full control of combustion modes – premixed or mixing-controlled hydrogen combustion.

The research team hope to be able to commercialise the new system in the next 12 to 24 months and is keen to consult with prospective investors.

They say the most immediate potential use for the new technology is in industrial locations where permanent hydrogen fuel supply lines are already in place.