EGR and Emulsified Fuel Combination Effects on the Combustion, Performance, and NOx Emissions in Marine Diesel Engines

Techniques such as exhaust gas recirculation (EGR) and water-in-fuel emulsions (WFEs) can significantly decrease NOx emissions in diesel engines. As a disadvantage of adopting EGR, the afterburning period lengthens owing to a shortage of oxygen, lowering thermal efficiency. Meanwhile, WFEs can slightly reduce NOx emissions and reduce the afterburning phase without severely compromising thermal efficiency. Therefore, the EGR–WFE combination was modeled utilizing the KIVA-3V code along with GT power and experimental results. The findings indicated that combining EGR with WFEs is an efficient technique to reduce afterburning and enhance thermal efficiency. Under the EGR state, the NO product was evenly lowered. In the WFE, a considerable NO amount was created near the front edge of the combustion flame. Additionally, squish flow from the piston’s up–down movement improved fuel–air mixing, and NO production was increased as a result, particularly at high injection pressure. Using WFEs with EGR at a low oxygen concentration significantly reduced NO emissions while increasing thermal efficiency. For instance, using 16% of the oxygen concentration and a 40% water emulsion, a 94% drop in NO and a 4% improvement in the Indicated Mean Effective Pressure were obtained concurrently. This research proposes using the EGR–WFE combination to minimize NO emissions while maintaining thermal efficiency.