The fuel landscape has steadily been changing and is expected to evolve at a much rapid pace over the coming years. There will be a shift towards low-carbon fuels, e-fuels, biofuels and sunfuels. Renewable fuels will see increased usage in the form of blending components for higher performance. Simultaneously, engine technologies will need to be improved significantly to achieve fuel-engine co-optimization. Many of these transformations are driven by the grand challenge of ‘global warming’ that our planet faces today.
In this lecture, we will talk about how the future is going to look like for fuels and engines. We will begin with a basic introduction of fuel chemistry and the key advantages of liquid fuels over batteries. We will then describe experimental and modelling approaches that are used to characterize fuel performance. These techniques allow us to choose the best candidate future fuels for high efficiency and low emissions.
