Commercial vehicle hydrogen internal combustion engine "burst"?
"Hydrogen fuel + engine" is becoming an important member of the low-carbon diversified technical route of commercial vehicles.
Since June 2022, Jiefang, Weichai, Yuchai and Shanghai new power have successively released hydrogen fuel engines for heavy-duty commercial vehicles. At the same time, Cummins, DEUTZ, Mann, Duff and other international commercial vehicle enterprises also actively promote the R & D and application of hydrogen fuel engines.
Why does hydrogen fuel engine focus on "explosion"? Will it drive a new round of "arms race" in the commercial vehicle industry?
Jiefang / Weichai / Yuchai / SAIC successively released hydrogen internal combustion engines
In one month in 2022, domestic commercial vehicle enterprises FAW Jiefang, China National Heavy Duty Truck, together with Weichai, Yuchai and Shanghai new power, successively released hydrogen fuel engines for heavy-duty commercial vehicles. Hydrogen fuel engine has become the focus of the industry for a time.
On June 8, the first domestic heavy-duty commercial vehicle cylinder direct injection hydrogen engine independently designed and developed by FAW Jiefang successfully ignited and operated stably.
This hydrogen engine is a 13L heavy-duty engine with an operating power of more than 500 horsepower and an indicated thermal efficiency of more than 55%. It has three major characteristics: technological innovation, industry launch and international leadership, marking a major breakthrough in the independent research and development of hydrogen direct injection engines in China.
On June 15, sinotruk Weichai Power jointly released the country's first commercial hydrogen internal combustion engine heavy truck. This model is a new generation of Yellow River brand high-end heavy truck of SINOTRUK, equipped with 13L hydrogen internal combustion engine independently developed by Weichai Power.
It is understood that since 2018, Weichai Power has begun to deploy hydrogen internal combustion engine technology, overcome a number of neck sticking technical problems, mastered a number of original patented technologies, achieved an effective thermal efficiency of 41.8%, reaching the international advanced level, and once again set a new global benchmark for the development of China's power field.
On June 30, Yuchai yck16h, China's largest hydrogen burning engine with the largest displacement and horsepower, was successfully ignited. With a displacement of 15.93 liters and a maximum horsepower of 560 horsepower, this engine is currently the largest hydrogen burning engine with the largest displacement and horsepower in China.
Previously, in December 2021, Yuchai successfully ignited China's first hydrogen burning engine yck05h for urban passenger cars, municipal administration, sanitation, logistics and distribution. After completing the development of the light hydrogen engine platform, yck16h heavy-duty direct injection hydrogen engine was launched this time, making Yuchai the only professional power system supplier in the domestic hydrogen energy field whose products cover light and heavy-duty hydrogen internal combustion engines and fuel cell systems.
On July 1, the first direct injection hydrogen engine of Shanghai New Power Automotive Technology Co., Ltd. was successfully ignited in the test base of the test and Certification Department! This direct injection hydrogen engine has a displacement of 12.8 liters and a design maximum horsepower of 480 horsepower. It adopts the leading in cylinder hydrogen direct injection technology, and its thermal efficiency is as high as 44%.
This new member of the new power family is in line with the company's consistent pursuit of surging power and clean and efficient. At the same time, it marks another solid step towards the field of new energy.
Hydrogen fueled engines are being "refocused"
At present, the history of hydrogen fuel engines classified as "new energy" can be traced back to 200 years ago.
In 1807, Francois Isaac de rivaz, a Swiss, built the first vehicle with a hydrogen engine. During the oil crisis in the 1970s, many car companies and scientific research institutions increased the R & D and application of hydrogen fuel engines, namely hydrogen internal combustion engines.
Although BMW, Ford, Mazda and other automobile enterprises have successfully developed complete vehicles using hydrogen internal combustion engines, the inconvenient filling of hydrogen, the high cost and the difficulties of detonation and tempering of hydrogen internal combustion engines have limited the large-scale application of hydrogen internal combustion engines.
In recent years, hydrogen fuel cell vehicles have become increasingly popular, and hydrogen internal combustion engine products have also returned to the planning of global car companies.
In short, hydrogen fuel cell trucks rely on the electrochemical reaction of hydrogen and oxygen in the fuel cell stack to generate electricity to drive vehicles. Hydrogen internal combustion engine trucks can use the existing internal combustion engine system to drive vehicles with hydrogen as fuel. These two technical routes are subject to the maturity of infrastructure facilities such as hydrogen production, hydrogen storage and hydrogen transportation.
According to fangde.com, Cummins, DEUTZ, Mann, Duff and other international commercial vehicle enterprises have deployed the R & D and application of hydrogen fuel engines. In June, 2022, Cummins announced to join the hydrogen engine alliance, which was established in January, 2022. Its members include automotive companies, industry suppliers and academic institutions such as Cummins, Bosch, Daimler truck and Karlsruhe Institute of technology.
Centralized breakthrough of hydrogen internal combustion engine in China
Why is the new domestic independent heavy-duty hydrogen internal combustion engine launched in June 2022?
Fang de believes that it is mainly due to the favorable timing and location.
First, commercial vehicles tend to be clean and low-carbon. Compared with international peers, China's research on hydrogen internal combustion engines was mainly started in the 1980s. The goal of "double carbon" was strongly promoted. In March 2022, the medium and long term plan for the development of hydrogen energy industry (2021-2035) was officially released, significantly accelerating the pace of hydrogen energy application.
During the two sessions of the National People's Congress in 2022, Liu Hanru, a deputy to the National People's Congress and chief scientist of Geely commercial vehicles, said in an interview that hydrogen internal combustion engines burn hydrogen without generating carbon dioxide emissions by refitting traditional internal combustion engines. It is a fast and reliable emission reduction technical scheme, which is worth developing and promoting.
Second, the location of China's internal combustion engine technology reserves and mature industrial chain.
The hydrogen direct injection engine released by FAW Jiefang, based on the zero hydrocarbon based internal combustion power incubation platform, has the capabilities of hydrogen single fuel direct injection in cylinder, hydrogen single fuel mixed injection in cylinder and airway, ammonia and hydrogen dual fuel injection, and can be flexibly converted into hydrogen, ammonia and other net zero carbon fuel products. Weichai hydrogen internal combustion engine adopts precise hydrogen injection control technology, efficient supercharging and lean combustion technology, applies Weichai's independent ECU system, and extends the technology based on the existing gas engine product platform, which can quickly promote the commercialization. Yuchai yck16h adopts advanced fuel high-pressure common rail, high-pressure cylinder direct injection technology and double channel pressurization technology, which can adapt to the fuel prepared by various ways such as gray hydrogen, green hydrogen and methanol online hydrogen production, so as to realize the free combination of fuel supply.
Compared with hydrogen fuel cells, which are technically difficult and cost-effective, hydrogen internal combustion engines are undoubtedly more cost-effective on the basis of China's mature internal combustion engine industry chain. Moreover, hydrogen internal combustion engine has better adaptability to multi fuel, which is more practical.
Independent hydrogen internal combustion engines have been released one after another, which shows that the technical preparation of Chinese enterprises has been relatively mature and has the possibility of market-oriented application.
Under the background of hydrogen energy strategic planning, policies and measures related to hydrogen fuel cells are frequently introduced. The hydrogen internal combustion engine is also the application of hydrogen energy to achieve low-carbon, which should be treated equally and recognized by the new energy points system of commercial vehicles.
Commercial vehicles are the key for the automotive industry to achieve the dual carbon strategic goal. The gradual maturity of the hydrogen energy industry chain is conducive to the development of two technical routes of hydrogen fuel cells and hydrogen internal combustion engines for commercial vehicles, and will make greater contributions to environmental protection and low carbon.
