Sandia researchers won an Outstanding Technology Development Award for its work on ducted fuel injection (DFI), a patented technology that slashes emissions of soot and nitrogen oxides from diesel engines by about 80% and is synergistic with sustainable liquid fuels like biodiesel.
According to Chuck Mueller, who leads the project, DFI is a simple, mechanical solution that involves installing tubes inside a diesel engine’s combustion chamber. Passing each fuel spray through a tube enhances entrainment and mixing, leading to lower soot production than when fuel is sprayed unconfined into a chamber. The lower soot levels enable the use of an existing, cost-effective approach to simultaneously attenuate emissions of nitrogen oxides.
Sandia was awarded a DOE Technology Commercialization Fund project in 2018 to advance DFI research. The Sandia team is currently seeking commercial partners to further develop the technology.