Reductions of Nitrogen oxides (NOx), sulphur oxides (SOx) and carbon dioxide (CO_2) emissions have been acknowledged on the global level. The International Maritime Organization (IMO) has developed some mandatory or non-mandatory instruments such as codes, amendments, recommendations or guidelines to strengthen the emissions regulations on ships engaged in international voyage. However, it is difficult to meet the strengthened emissions regulations on the conventional marine diesel engines. Lean burn gas engines have been thus recently attracting attention in the maritime industry. The lean burn gas engines use natural gas as fuel and can simultaneously reduce both NOx and CO_2 emissions. On the other hand, since methane is the main component of natural gas, the slipped methane which is the unburned methane emitted from the lean burn gas engines might have a potential impact on global warming. The authors investigated on a ship installed conventional marine diesel engines and lean burn gas engines, and have proposed a C-EGR (combined exhaust gas recirculation) system to reduce the slipped methane from the gas engines and NOx from marine diesel engines. This system consists of a marine diesel engine and a lean burn gas engine, and the exhaust gas emitted from the lean burn gas engine is provided to the intake manifold of the marine diesel engine by a blower installed between both engines. Since exhaust gas from the gas engine including slipped methane, this system could reduce both the NOx from the marine diesel engine and the slipped methane from the lean burn gas engine simultaneously. This paper introduces the details of the proposed C-EGR system, and presents the experimental results of emissions and engine performance characteristics on the C-EGR system. In the experiment, the diesel engine was operated at three load conditions of 25, 50 and 75% along with the propeller load curve. In order to keep the slipped methane concentration constant, the gas engine was operated at a constant load condition of 25%. The intake exhaust gas quantity which is supplied to the diesel engine was adjusted by the blower speed. As a result, it was confirmed that the C-EGR system attained more than 75% reduction of the slipped methane in the intake gas. In addition, the NOx emission from the diesel engine decreased with the effect of the EGR system. Also the fuel consumption of the diesel engine did not increase, because of the methane combustion in the intake gas.
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