Combustion Processes and Emissions Assessment of Internal Combustion Engines

Dear Colleagues,

Internal combustion engines have been widely applied in transportation, industrial, architectural and agricultural fields primarily owing to their fuel economy, simple and rigid structure, favorable power to weight ratio, high combustion efficiency, and robust operating characteristics. The emissions from internal combustion engines such as NOx, SOx, CO₂, and particulate matters (PM), and black smoke are recognized as significant sources of air pollution, leading to climate change, extreme weather and fatal threats to human health. Except from continuous increase of engine efficiency to reduce fuel cost, emission reduction to meet legislative requirement is currently the major consideration for the research and design of internal combustion engines. Internal combustion engines compete with steam turbines, gas turbines and electric motors to be applied in vehicular, marine, railroad, aircraft, and stationary power. The combustion processes might be improved through in-depth understanding of burning mechanisms and chemical kinetics. The pollutant emissions of internal combustion engines could be reduced by modifying the engine cylinder geometry, enhancing fluid dynamics of burning gas, or installing after-treatment equipment such as selective catalyst reduction (SCR), exhaust gas recirculation (EGR), scrubber, catalytic converter, etc. In addition, hybrid alternative fuels including liquid–liquid, liquid–gas or solid–gas fuels have been considered efficient for reducing fuel consumption and emission, for example: co-burning liquefied natural gas (LNG) with heavy fuel oil, and petro-derived fuel with gaseous hydrogen. The global mission of net-zero carbon emission moves the technology of internal combustion engines forward. 

Topics include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Combustion mechanism of promising alternative fuel of internal combustion engines;
• Fluid dynamics of injected liquid fuel and burning gas flow inside engine cylinder;
• Novel injection design and their influences on fuel economy and engine performance;
• Compositions and fuel properties of potential alternative engine fuel;
• Engine performance and emission characteristics of newly designed engine infrastructure;
• Life cycle analysis for greenhouse gas emission and energy usage for promising engine fuel;
• Development prospects of internal combustion engines to meet carbon-neutral requirement in transportation or energy sectors;
• Techno-economic analysis of internal combustion engines for various applications. 

Prof. Dr. Cherng-Yuan Lin
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Processes is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• combustion mechanism and processes
• chemical composition and fuel properties
• advanced injection or cylinder design
• engine performance and emission characteristics
• life cycle analysis for alternative fuel
• techno-economic analysis for various applications
• development prospects to meet carbon-neutral requirement
• novel combustion technology for non-carbon alternative fuel