Improved Combustion Efficiency and Reduction of Emissions of Compression Ignition Engines Using On-Board Non-Thermal Plasma Generated Hydrogen/Syngas

The Department of Defense (DOD) accounts for over 21 million barrels of oil usage per day, with a majority of the fuel being appropriated to JP-8. Among the military"s various armed forces, the Army alone spends over $4.1 billion for energy, with a major portion of this also attributed to JP-8 jet fuel consumption for maintaining operational capability on a daily basis. Diesel generators are currently operated with JP-8 due to the single fuel directive and generator fuel efficiencies consequentially suffer due to the substitution of diesel with JP-8 jet fuel. Lynntech has developed a JP-8 fuel reformer retrofit kit based on a non-thermal plasma discharge technology that reforms a small portion of the JP-8 supplied to the generator engine into hydrogen and lower hydrocarbon (HC) chains. When this reformate stream is injected into the air intake of the engine, it results in a more complete and efficient combustion. This technology was demonstrated to reduce overall fuel consumption (~4.5% reduction with light engine loading and advanced injection timing alone with potential for increased fuel reduction at other operating conditions) and decrease emissions (~42% hydrocarbon emission reduction with injection of 9% reformed gas) from the genset.