과학기술정보통신부 산하 한국기계연구원(원장 류석현) 친환경에너지연구본부 친환경모빌리티연구실 박철웅 책임연구원 연구팀과 현대차·기아 전동화설계센터는 세계 최초로 암모니아를 연소실에 고압으로 직접 분사하는 방식의 엔진을 공동 개발했다.

▲Park Cheol-woong, head researcher, Eco-friendly Mobility Research Lab, Korea Institute of Machinery and Materials
Securing core carbon-neutral technologies in next-generation mobility and power generation
A 2-liter engine that uses ammonia, a renewable energy source that does not emit greenhouse gases, as fuel has been developed. This technology is expected to be utilized as a source technology in various fields, such as power sources for future vehicle, ship, and aviation mobility, and industrial generators.
The research team of Park Cheol-woong, a senior researcher at the Eco-friendly Mobility Research Lab of the Eco-friendly Energy Research Center of the Korea Institute of Machinery and Materials (President Ryu Seok-hyun) under the Ministry of Science and ICT, and the Hyundai Motor Company and Kia Motors Electrification Design Center announced on the 23rd that they have jointly developed an engine that directly injects ammonia into the combustion chamber at high pressure for the first time in the world.
The biggest feature of the developed engine is that ammonia, a hydrogen carrier, can be used directly as fuel without a separate decomposition process.
The gaseous fuel method, which has unstable output and produces a lot of harmful emissions, was improved by introducing a high-pressure liquid injection method.
High-pressure liquid injection method can stably supply large quantities of ammonia fuel.
It achieves the world's highest level of specific power output with only pure ammonia, so it can be used without any separate combustion improvement devices or additives.
The research team further improved performance by improving the ignition device and optimizing the fuel injection timing and intake and exhaust valve opening timing.
Additionally, the emission of nitrogen oxides and unburned ammonia was minimized with an ammonia-only post-treatment system. As a result, thermal efficiency and output were greatly improved, and harmful emissions were also significantly reduced.
Park Cheol-woong, a senior researcher at the Korea Institute of Machinery and Materials, said, “This technology is a new concept that dramatically improves the performance of existing ammonia engines,” and “It will change the paradigm of industrial power generation fields such as mobility power sources and clean hydrogen power generation.”
Hyundai Motor Company and Kia Motors Research Director Seungwoo Lee predicted, “It will be established as a new clean fuel-based power source that can solve the challenges of hydrogen transportation and green hydrogen production.”
Meanwhile, this study was conducted as a project called ‘Ammonia Direct Injection Engine Target Evaluation’, a Hyundai Motor Company-Kia Motors service project.
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▲Major ammonia engine components, including a high-pressure ammonia pump and direct injection ammonia injector