High Efficiency Hydrogen Internal Combustion Engine – Carbon Free Powertrain for Passenger Car Hybrids and Commercial Vehicles

Europe is leading the race for reducing CO2 emissions. The contribution of traffic plays a major role in that race. Governments and industry set a focus on Battery Electric Vehicles (BEV).
A possible alternative to BEVs are hydrogen-fueled internal combustion engines. Also, these powertrains can be operated CO2-free. By using optimized combustion and exhaust aftertreatment, such engines can also be operated close to zero emissions (“zero impact”).
Up to now, adaptions to hydrogen typically started with conventional approaches – for passenger cars from boosted direct injection engines, for commercial applications from swirl-based gas- or Diesel engines.
In the future, powertrain systems with highest efficiency are needed – on the one hand to keep the energy requirement for hydrogen production on the lowest possible level, on the other hand to increase the range of the hydrogen-fueled vehicle. Especially for passenger cars the future powertrain will be electrified. This allows a specific layout of the hydrogen engine towards a dedicated hybrid engine.
This publication deals with the layout of hydrogen engines for commercial applications and passenger cars focusing in this segment on hybridized powertrains with a dedicated solution with highest efficiency powertrains. By combining high compression ratio, Miller combustion system, direct hydrogen injection, lean operation and boosting, efficiencies comparable to the ones currently achieved by the best dedicated hybrid engines, which are currently under development, are feasible.