GESIR: Fitness program for gas engines
The future must show whether electric mobility, where the energy is supplied by batteries, is also the solution for large vehicles. In this context, gas engines appear as an alternative sustainable and low-emission transport - even if they tend to serve a niche market in Germany. Power-to-gas technology allows to produce gas from renewable energies through water electrolysis and methanation using excess electricity, to supply it to our well-developed gas network - and to use it as an environmentally friendly fuel.
However, some acceptance problems need to be solved: On the one hand, there is a lack of performance of passenger car gas engines, which so far reach a maximum of 130 hp, while the average value of German passenger cars is over 150 hp; only recently a gas engine with 170 hp was presented. On the other hand, the comparatively short oil change intervals should be raised to the usual level for diesel and petrol engines.
The research project "GESIR - gas engines with energy-efficient system technologies and integral robustness" of the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy, which runs until 2022, aims to make gas engines more powerful and resilient so that they can also be used in larger vehicles. FUCHS is participating in this research project with lubricants that can withstand the challenges of engine components in the thermally and tribologically particularly stressed areas of the valve train in gas engines.
