Decarbonization of mobility, including transportation and renewable fuels

An industrial panel session, focussed on 'Decarbonization of Mobility', was held at the 39th International Symposium of Combustion (ISOC) with representatives from GE, Rolls-Royce, Toyota, PACCAR, and FM Global - this paper is a summary of the discussion Hydrogen and fully electric aircraft are likely to be appropriate for some markets, with Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) being required for many applications. For the heavy duty (HD) sector, battery electric commercial vehicles may be less practical for ranges > 300 miles, depending on the assumptions used, and well-to-wheel approaches are needed for robust comparisons between options. For passenger cars, a key message was that there is merit in considering high efficiency combustion options in conjunction with decarbonized fuels: super lean burn options on liquid fuels have the capacity to reach 50% brake thermal efficiency (BTE). Moreover, efficiency could be pushed higher with hydrogen combustion engines. From the perspective of understanding hazards, risk and safety of alternative fuels and vehicles, it needs to be recognized that hydrogen and hydrogen blends have very different combustion properties compared to traditional fuels, and that Li-ion batteries can potentially present fire and explosion hazards & COPY; 2023 The Combustion Institute. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.