Audi develops ecological fuels

[Juppitèr]

In addition to thinking about the development of more efficient vehicles, more aerodynamic and with engines full of technology, Audi has been working on the creation of synthetic fuels -also called e-fuels-, which cover three categories e-gas, e-gasoline and e-diesel.

In the case of e-gasoline, the Ingolstadt company has achieved an important goal, which is to produce, for the first time, a sufficient amount of synthetic fuel -60 liters- to carry out the initial tests in engine banks.

As a good e-fuel, Audi's e-gasoline has many advantages, including non-dependence on oil, is compatible with existing infrastructure and offers the prospect of a closed carbon cycle.

Now, in chemical terms, e-gasoline is essentially a liquid iso-octane and is produced from biomass in a two-step process. In the first, isobutene gaseous (C4H8) is produced in a demonstration plant, to then reach the second stage, in which additional hydrogen is used to transform it into iso-octane (C8H18). In this way, the fuel is free of sulfur and benzene and, therefore, is especially low in contaminants when burned.

As part of this test, Audi engineers are now examining the combustion and behavior of renewable fuel emissions in a bank of engines. As a high purity synthetic fuel with very good anti-knock properties, Audi's e-gasoline offers the possibility of further increasing engine compression and thus increasing efficiency.

In the medium term, the partners of the project aim to modify the production process so that it does not require biomass; in this case, CO2 and hydrogen produced from renewable sources should be sufficient raw materials.

As we can see, Audi's alternative fuels already offer great potential for sustainable mobility and help reduce CO2 emissions from combustion engines. For example, the g-tron models in e-gas mode compared to an equivalent model with a gasoline engine, considering the car's driving mode and the fuel production process, see a reduction of 80% in emissions emissions .