A paradigm shift towards the utilization of carbon-neutral and low emission fuels is necessary in the internal combustion engine industry to fulfil the carbon emission goals and future legislation requirements in many countries. Hydrogen as an energy carrier and main fuel is a promising option due to its carbon-free content, wide flammability limits and fast flame speeds. For spark-ignited internal combustion engines, utilizing hydrogen direct injection has been proven to achieve high engine power output and efficiency with low emissions. This review provides an overview of the current development and understanding of hydrogen use in internal combustion engines that are usually spark ignited, under various engine operation modes and strategies. This paper then proceeds to outline the gaps in current knowledge, along with better potential strategies and technologies that could be adopted for hydrogen direct injection in the context of compression-ignition engine applications—topics that have not yet been extensively explored to date with hydrogen but have shown advantages with compressed natural gas.

In this article, a generic framework was proposed to effectively characterise the pyrolysis kinetics of any household furniture materials. To examine the validity of this method, two wooden polymeric samples, (1) furniture plywood and (2) particle board, were experimented through thermogravimetric and differential thermal analyses, as well as cone calorimetry. The framework comprises of three major parameterisation procedures including (1) using the Kissinger method for the initial approximation, (2) modification of modelling constants and (3) optimisation by comparisons with the experimental results. The finalised pyrolysis kinetics was numerically investigated through computational fluid dynamics simulation of the cone calorimeter. Numerical predictions were validated against the experimental data for three different cone radiation intensities. Good agreement was achieved between the computational and experimental results in terms of heat release rate, ignition time and burn duration. The proposed framework was capable of establishing quality pyrolysis kinetics that fully replicates the complex thermal decomposition of solid combustible materials.