The German engine manufacturer Deutz will collaborate with the Public University of Navarra (UPNA) and Tafalla Iron Foundry S.Coop. in its research to use hydrogen as fuel in industrial engines. It is the first time that the firm (the world’s oldest engine manufacturer) works with a university based outside Germany.
The UPNA and Tafalla Iron Foundry S.Coop. recently signed an OTRI transfer contract on this matter. And the collaboration with the German company arises from the manufacture by foundry of engine blocks, which are sent to Deutz for the assembly and tuning of industrial engines.
In order to seal this alliance, representatives of the three entities met recently at the facilities of the academic institution. In addition, they visited the Hydrogen Laboratory and the Engine Laboratory, where a team of German engineers were able to see the state of research in this area. They also drove on campus the Volkswagen Polo ‘Carlos’, a vehicle modified by the Hydrogen Group of the UPNA to operate using hydrogen as fuel.
“For Tafalla Iron Foundry S.Coop., this joint research project with the UPNA and Deutz is a strategic challenge, which aims to position itself in the future development of hydrogen-powered engines. This technology is in a permanent development phase, since it allows maintaining the design concept of internal combustion engines and, at the same time, achieves a neutral effect in the emission of polluting gases. The development of this project will allow Tafalla Iron Foundry S.Coop. to be a reference in the foundry sector as a supplier of iron engines for future hydrogen applications”, said Ignacio Ainzúa, Engineering Director of the Navarre company.
INDUSTRIAL DECARBONIZATION
Specifically, the project is framed in a scenario in which the new anti-pollution regulations in Europe are forcing engine manufacturers, especially diesel or gasoil manufacturers, to look for new technologies. In this context, “hydrogen is considered a protagonist for the decarbonization of transport and industry”, according to the academic institution.
Tafalla Iron Foundry has extensive experience in the casting of diesel engine blocks, and wants to study their behavior by burning hydrogen-diesel fuel mixtures. On the other hand, the trajectory of almost twenty years of the Hydrogen Group in the application of hydrogen as fuel in gasoline combustion engines changes course and now focuses on diesel engines.
On the other hand, in addition to the theoretical studies contemplated in the proposal, it is planned the assembly of “an industrial engine in the engine test cell of the Carlos Sopena Laboratory of the University, its tuning, its hydrogen-diesel bi-fuel supply and the programming of the electronic control unit”.
In parallel, a detailed study will be carried out at Tafalla Iron Foundry on the action that these fuel mixtures can cause on the different castings, focusing the analysis on the engine block and cylinder head components. With this project, the aim is to “find the most suitable material to be in contact with hydrogen and, at the same time, maintain the mechanical properties required for the proper functioning of the engine”. This development will provide the cooperative with the necessary knowledge to become a technological partner in this new field of hydrogen engines.
