Recent Progress on Combustion Characteristics of Ammonia-Based Fuel Blends and Their Potential in Internal Combustion Engines

Abstract

Ammonia has recently attracted numerous attentions from researchers and policy makers as promising energy and hydrogen carrier for mitigating the carbon footprints in the energy sector. The mature infrastructure for the production, storage, and transportation of ammonia allows a quick role of ammonia in energy systems. By applying green hydrogen and renewable energies, green ammonia can be produced, which makes ammonia even more attractive. Prior to the commercial use of ammonia for large-scale energy systems, e.g., internal combustion engines and stationary gas turbines, a fundamental understanding of the ignition and combustion behaviors of ammonia is essential. In the past decades, a lot of studies on ammonia combustion have been published. Those studies covered broad topics including experimental and numerical investigations which were either fundamental or practical oriented. To continuously follow state-of-the-art and to provide a brief overview of the most recent research on ammonia combustion so that others can easily identify the most relevant work, this review summarizes the recent progress on combustion characteristics of ammonia and ammonia fuel blends as well as their potential use in internal combustion engines. Combining the advantages and drawbacks identified in both fundamental and practical studies, a clearer road map for ammonia application is given.