Combustion enhancement system and method

Details Combustion enhancement system and method Combustion enhancement system and method

2001-06-08

2004-06-08

Gimie, Mahmoud (Department: 3747)

Internal-combustion engines

Combustion chamber means having fuel injection only

Combination igniting means and injector

Reexamination Certificate

active

06745744

ABSTRACT:

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
It is believed that adding hydrogen to fuel makes an engine run cleaner as hydrogen is believed to promote complete combustion. This appears to be described, for example, by: Heywood, J. B. in
Internal Combustion Engine Fundamentals
(McGraw Hill, 773-774, 1988), Das, L. M. in paper “Hydrogen engines: a view of the past and a look into the future” (Int. J. Hydrogen Energy, vol. 15, p. 425, 1990), and DeLuchi, M. A. in paper “Hydrogen; and evaluation of fuel storage, performance, safety environmental impacts, and cost” (Int. J. Hydrogen Energy, vol. 14, p. 81, 1989). A problem with these examples was that they failed to explicitly teach how to efficiently generate hydrogen on-board, in compact devices. Alternative approaches of storing hydrogen on-board are not practical because they may require high pressure vessels, cryogenic containers if the hydrogen is to be stored as a compressed gas, liquid, or a large container if the hydrogen is to be stored as a hydride.
Several approaches are believed to have been pursued for on-board production of hydrogen. One of these approaches appear to use electrolysis of water, i.e. breaking down water molecule into hydrogen and oxygen and introducing the hydrogen into an internal combustion engine as stated by Munday, J. F. in “Hydrogen and Oxygen System for Producing Fuel Engines”, U.S. Pat. No. 5,143,025. However, it is believed that production of hydrogen by electrolysis is about one order of magnitude less efficient than by plasma devices. Hydrogen can also be produced on-board by water interaction with solid carbon by passing electrical current between the carbon electrodes as stated in Dammann, W. A., “Methods and Means of Generating Gas from Water for use as a Fuel,” U.S. Pat. No. 5,159,900, wherein carbon is oxidized to form CO and H
2
. This approach may be impractical due to the short duration and high current requirement. Alternatively, Greiner, L., and Moard, D. M., “Emissions Reduction System for Internal Combustion Engines,” of U.S. Pat. No. 5,207,185, proposed to use a burner, which utilizes a portion of the hydrocarbon fuel to reform another portion to produce hydrogen. The hydrogen is then mixed with the hydrocarbon fuel for introduction into an internal combustion engine. More practical approach seems to be taken by Breshears et al. (see paper by Breshears, R., Cotrill, H., and Rupe, T., “Partial Hydrogen Injection into Internal Combustion Engines,” Proc. EPS 1
st
Symp. On Low Pollution Power Systems Development, Ann Arbor, Mich. 1973). They proposed to direct a fraction of gasoline from the flow path to the engine and pass it through a thermal converter where steam reforms to yield hydrogen-rich gas.
An approach for on-board production of hydrogen for internal combustion engine fuel enrichment has been developed. This approach utilizes a relatively small size plasmatron (believed to be the size of a wine bottle) to facilitate conversion of a wide range of hydrocarbon fuels into hydrogen-rich gas without the use of a catalyst as stated in the following papers: Rabinovich, A., Cohn, D. R., and Bromberg, L., “Plasmatron Internal Combustion Engine System for Vehicle Pollution Reduction,” Int. J. Vehicle Design, vol. 15, p. 234, 1995; Cohn, D. R., Rabinovich, A., and Titus, C. H., “Onboard Plasmatron Operation Generation of Hydrogen for Extremely Low Emission Vehicles with Internal Combustion Engines,” Int. J. Vehicle Design, vol. 17, p. 550, 1996; Cohn, D. R., Rabinovich, A., Titus, C. H., and Bromberg, L., “Near Term Possibilities for Extremely Low Emission Vehicles using On-board Plasmatron Generation of Hydrogen,” Int. J. Hydrogen Energy, vol. 22, p. 715, 1997; Cohn, D. R., Rabinovich, A., Titus, C., “Rapid Response Plasma Fuel Converter Systems,” U.S. Pat. No. 5,887,554, 1999. An internal combustion engine is connected to receive the hydrogen-rich gas from the plasmatron. A plasmatron is believed to generate plasma by heating an electrically conducting gas either by an arc discharge, by a high frequency inductive or by a microwave discharge. In a plasmatron plasma, at temperatures between 5,000-10,000 K, the reaction rates are high for partial oxidation conversion of a hydrocarbon and air into hydrogen-rich gas. The process which was described by Bromberg, L., Cohn, D., Rabinovich, A., Sama, J., Virolen, J., in the paper “Compact plasmatron-boosted hydrogen generation technology for vehicular applications” (Inter. Journal of Hydrogen Energy, vol. 24, pp. 341-350, 1999) can be presented as follows:
2
C
n
H
m
+n
O
2
+4
n
N
2
→2
n
CO+
m
H
2
+4
n
N
2
  (1)
where m and n are the numbers of carbon and hydrogen atoms in the hydrocarbon molecule.
The plasmatron is very attractive as one of many ways of producing hydrogen-rich gas for vehicles. It should be possible to almost instantaneously produce hydrogen-rich gas, which can be used in the startup of a vehicle. Throughout the driving cycle, rapid changes in hydrogen-rich gas flow may be accommodated by varying plasmatron parameters such as, for example, energy input, flow rate, product gas composition, etc. Although the plasmatron may be advantageous in vehicle applications, its size is believed to deter a practical application.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The present invention provides a system to deliver fuel through an ignition source. The system of the present invention provides for an ignition source that utilizes a plasma ignition device. The plasma ignition device, which has an arrangement for delivering fuel to the ignition source, also includes a fuel or air and fuel mixture (air/fuel) dissociating device that improves a combustion cycle. The present inventions achieve this improvement by affecting the physical structure of the air/fuel mixture that enters the chamber of a combustion chamber. The present invention provides for a fuel delivery system that dissociates fuel within the combustion chamber. The present invention can dissociate fuel or an air/fuel mixture to improve the quality of the fuel for combustion. The dissociation of the fuel can include hydrogenating the fuel or the air/fuel mixture. The present invention can dissociate fuel and also ignite the fuel. The dissociation and ignition of the fuel, within the system of the present invention, can be accomplished by a single ignition source. The single ignition source could be a high-energy ignition source that has a short duration for generating and moving a plasma. The present invention also provides a fuel delivery system that allows for particularized control of the quality and quantity of the fuel/air mixture supplied to a combustion chamber. The present invention also provides for a direct injection fuel system that can utilize a single component for both dissociating and igniting fuel, air/fuel mixture or a combustible mixture. The present invention also provides a system that reduces the fuel delivery space requirements within an engine compartment.
In one preferred embodiment, the present invention provides for a fuel delivery system. The system comprises an ignitor proximate a combustion region. The ignitor includes a first electrically conductive surface spaced from a second electrically conductive surface to form a gap in direct communication with the combustion region. A fuel supply provides at least one of fuel or air/fuel mixture to the gap. A controller provides at least one electrical pulse between the first conductive surface and second conductive surface that dissociates at least one of fuel or air /fuel mixture passing through the discharge gap.
In another preferred embodiment, the present invention provides for a fuel delivery system. The system comprises an ignitor proximate a combustion region. The ignitor includes a housing, a first electrically conductive surface, a second electrically conductive surface spaced from the first electrically conductive surface to form a discharge gap. The second electrically conductive surface has a second length. The shorter of the first and second lengths defines a discharge gap length. The

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