DOE award to support commercialization of RCCI dual-fuel combustion technology
18 August 2011
Wisconsin Engine Research Consultants (WERC, LLC) last week was awarded $1.5 million by the US Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy as one of 40 projects to target new innovations and accelerate the development of the next generation of fuel-efficient vehicles. (Earlier post.) WERC is a University of Wisconsin spinoff company created by Professors Rolf Reitz and Christopher Rutland to provide analysis and consulting services to the engine industry.
Reitz says the grant will help commercialize reactivity controlled compression ignition (RCCI) technology, for which the UW-Madison Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF) has several patent applications pending. RCCI is a promising dual-fuel compression engine combustion strategy developed by Reitz and his colleagues that uses in-cylinder fuel blending with at least two fuels of different reactivity and multiple injections to optimize combustion phasing, duration and magnitude. RCCI results in efficient, premixed-charge combustion with near zero levels of NOx and soot. (Earlier post.)
In work presented earlier this year, Reitz said his team has modeled a 53% gross indicated efficiency for an RCCI-enabled light-duty engine.
The newly funded research will optimize RCCI for both light-duty and heavy-duty engines, and will be conducted in conjunction with the Engine Research Center, which will be installing new test facilities with additional matching funds from Caterpillar, Inc. for the heavy-duty engine tests. The Oak Ridge National Lab in Tennessee, also a subcontractor on the project, will test RCCI in light-duty multi-cylinder automotive engines.
One of the patent applications on RCCI was recently published by the US Patent and Trademark Office: Application 20110192367, Engine Combustion Control Via Fuel Reactivity Stratification.
Because the invention was made with United States government support (awards from DOE), the US government has certain rights in the invention.
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