E-Fuel applications in Non Road Mobile Machinery 2022-32-0074

Professional users in particular will continue to rely on internal combustion engine drives in the future due to high power requirements and high daily energy consumption. Especially if they have to work in rural areas without the possibility of recharging batteries, such as in forestry or maintenance of road verges or railway lines. For these applications, it must be possible to run sustainable fuels for defossilization and drastically reduced CO2 emissions. This paper provides insights into a possible future fuel market and describes its evolution towards a more sustainable future from the perspective of a handheld equipment manufacturer. As developments in the fuel market are currently difficult to predict, manufacturers of hand-held power tools with combustion engines need to be prepared for changes in the composition of fuels that might become available on the market. This paper presents the engine performance results of both a 2-stroke engine and a 4-stroke engine, each with spark ignition, for typical handheld applications operating on a fuel blend of dimethyl carbonate, methyl formate and ethanol (DMC+) compared to commercially available fuels.

Since DMC+ fuel differs significantly in its chemical properties in terms of material compatibility, air demand and energy content compared to regular fuels, changes to the hardware and engine calibration are necessary. In addition, a common 2-stroke engine oil is not miscible with DMC+. Thus, a special newly developed oil had to be used to lubricate the engine. The investigations will show the influence of this fuel and the engine oil on the mixture preparation, the combustion behavior as well as the resulting exhaust emissions.