Nissan's New, More Efficient, Fuel Injectors
Completely shifting the auto industry’s design focus away from internal combustion engines will be a long process. In the meantime, there are many things that can make a traditional engine more efficient. These measures can be implemented with lower costs and, while they don’t provide the massive fuel and emissions reductions associated with electric cars, they are much more likely to end up in your driveway. Case in point is Nissan’s new Dual Injector System.
A fuel injector has a simple purpose: take liquid fuel, vaporize it, then inject the mist into the combustion chamber. It’s pretty much the same process as household cleaning sprays; liquid to mist. Once the fuel is in the combustion chamber, it is compressed then ignited. Nissan’s new system does exactly what the name implies: instead of one mist of fuel, there are two. While seemingly very simple, this setup has numerous benefits. First of all, this increases the vaporized fuel’s surface area, causing it to ignite more easily and more efficiently. In internal combustion engines, not all fuel is combusted, meaning some energy is wasted. The Dual Injector system accounts for a 4% increase in fuel economy.
Okay, 4% doesn’t seem like that much, but there are other bonuses. First of all is cost. Some cars, generally larger-engined premium cars, have a system called “Direct Injection.” This system is efficient and uses a “common fuel rail” to deliver fuel to multiple cylinders at once instead of an individual injector for each cylinder. While Nissan’s Dual Injector system is not as efficient as Direct Injection (which the company will still use on their premium models), The Dual system costs 60% less to manufacture. Also, because the fuel burns more completely, that means less fuel and carbon in the exhaust. Nissan estimates that the rare metals and materials used in the exhaust system’s catalytic converter. Two of the most common materials in catalytic converters are palladium and platinum. Both of these are rare and expensive metals that are hard to mine, resulting in a lot of environmental damage at the harvest site.
So, the Nissan Dual Injector system will reduce environmental impact by increasing fuel economy, reducing carbon emissions, and cutting into demand for metals that cause a lot of pollution when mined. And it’ll cost less. This looks like a big win-win-win-win situation.
July 18th, 2009 at 4:22 pm
[...] bringing their fleet of vehicles into the 21st century. Following their recent announcement of new fuel injector technology and approval for a $1.6 billion U.S. Department of Energy loan, they have laid out in detail [...]