Potential of On‐Board Gasoline Upgrading for Enhancement of Engine Efficiency

Abstract

Apart from the introduction of renewable fuels, improved engine efficiency is a useful strategy for the reduction of CO 2 emission from vehicles. Therefore, this work deals with the catalytic on-board upgrading of commercial gasoline to enhance the content of aromatics, leading to improved knocking behavior to allow higher compression in the engine. Resulting from theoretical considerations and thermodynamic calculations, model mixtures with a higher aromatic content were prepared and analyzed towards their octane number. Engine tests with these mixtures show an enhancement of engine efficiency. Laboratory-scale catalytic reforming experiments demonstrated a relative increase of the aromatic content in the treated gasoline. The gaseous cracking products have good knocking behavior and could be routed to the engine as additional fuel.

Catalytic Upgrading of Light Naphtha to Gasoline Blending Components: A Mini Review

“…The gasoline pool receives product streams, such as isomerate, reformate, alkylate, and fluid catalytic cracking (FCC) gasoline, from different units in the refinery as well as the addition of renewable oxygenates. The composition of gasoline comprises different compounds of alkanes, isoalkanes, olefins, naphthenes, and aromatics, known as PIONA . The production of branched alkanes from light naphtha has become one of the important targets in refineries.…”

“…The composition of gasoline comprises different compounds of alkanes, isoalkanes, olefins, naphthenes, and aromatics, known as PIONA. 5 The production of branched alkanes from light naphtha has become one of the important targets in refineries. Under clean-fuel regulations, refiners must reduce the sulfur content in gasoline, which will add more challenges to use available volumes of low-octane light naphtha in the gasoline pool.…”

Hydrous Ethanol Steam Reforming and Thermochemical Recuperation to Improve Dual-Fuel Diesel Engine Emissions and Efficiency

“…Although steam reforming (SR) has been used industrially for many years, ethanol and methanol SR has been recently studied as a means to achieve TCR in internal combustion engines [4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13]. The chemical formula for ideal ethanol SR is shown in Equation 1.…”