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Global climate change is a threat and limiting global temperatures to 1.5 0C is a challenge. However, it is possible to avoid the worst consequences by taking scientifically defined paths. Science Based Target (SBT) is one such joint initiatives which provide companies with clearly defined path to reduce emissions in line with Paris agreement. In Europe collaboration of European Commission’s Joint Research Centre (JRC), OEMs and Refineries have come forward to understand the impact of different energy carriers on energy usage and CO2 emissions on WTW (Well-to-Wheel) basis. Outcome of such a study result in emission factors (gCO2eq/unit fuel or energy consumed) for various energy carriers.

Development of future efficient and cleaner heavy duty engines are no longer limited to laboratory development under standard conditions. In order to address the global issues like climate change and poor air quality in its true sense, future advanced and existing heavy duty diesel engines should also be demonstrating emission conformity compliance as per legislations under real driving conditions using PEMS testing. In India starting from Apr 2023, heavy duty vehicles would be tested for in-service conformity and presently they are under monitoring phase. With the introduction of RDE (Real Driving Emission) the effort, cost and time requirements could be tremendous in order to meet conformity compliance over real driving conditions including the range of ambient conditions for the said period as per the norms.

Air pollution in India and also global warming are two major concern in the country. To address this situation, India is moving from BS-IV to BS-VI for on-road applications with 90% reduction in NOx and 50% in PM with limit on particulate number. Also moving to Trem-IV and Trem-V for off-road applications subsequently. It needs higher efficiency after-treatment systems like SCR and DPF to achieve such lower emission levels. Addition of these complex after-treatment system, severely increase the cost of diesel power plant with heavy penalty on fuel economy. Hence, it is challenge to auto industry to reduce the complexity and cost, so that it requires an alternate solution to reduce NOx and PM emissions at source to reduce cost and system complexity. Low Temperature Combustion (LTC) is a potential concept to reduce the NOx and PM emissions simultaneously.

With the announcement, as per draft notification GSR 187 (E) dated 19th Feb 2016 issued by MoRTH (Ministry of Road Transport and Highways), on vehicle emission standards to leapfrog from BS IV to BS VI by 2020, diesel engines would be greatly facing challenges to meet the stringent emission requirements of 90% reduction in PM and 50% reduction in NOx emissions simultaneously. Up to BS IV, in-cylinder strategies utilizing higher fuel injection pressure, higher intake boost, lower to moderate EGR, optimized combustion chamber design and lower intake manifold temperature would be sufficient. But meeting emission levels at BS VI levels would require a combination of both in-cylinder combustion control and after treatment system [1]. However, unlike Europe and US markets where wide spread adoption of after treatment solution is viable, for Indian market it would be impeded by infrastructure availability, system cost and cost of ownership.

Towards the effort of reducing pollutant emissions, especially soot and nitrogen oxides, from direct injection Diesel engines, engineers have proposed various solutions, one of which is the use of a gaseous fuel as a partial supplement for liquid Diesel fuel. These engines are known as dual fuel combustion engines. A dual fuel (Diesel-CNG) engine is a base diesel engine fitted with a dual fuel conversion kit to enable use of clean burning alternative fuel like compressed natural gas. In this engine diesel and natural gas are burned simultaneously. Natural gas is fed into the cylinder along with intake air; the amount of diesel injection is reduced accordingly. Dual fuel engines have number of potential advantages like fuel flexibility, higher compression ratio, and better efficiency and less modifications on existing diesel engines. It is an ecological friendly technology due to lower PM and smoke emissions and retains the efficiency of diesel combustion.