Assessing single-fuel solutions enabling compression ignition of renewable methanol

In today's world, the transportation of goods via trucks and ships plays a pivotal role, and this trend is expected to persist in the foreseeable future, owing to its critical importance to society. However, the most common propulsion system for these vehicles, the compression ignition (CI) engine, commonly known as the diesel engine, relies heavily on fossil diesel fuel, resulting in significant emissions that need to be mitigated to achieve the climate goals. Transitioning to electric power for heavy-duty transport vehicles is challenging due to the need for large battery packs, which consume valuable cargo space and reduce load capability. For some applications, such as shipping, electrification simply cannot deliver the required autonomy.Instead renewable fuels present a more promising solution with hydrogen, ammonia, and alcohols as alternatives. Among those methanol has emerged as a particularly promising option, especially in the marine sector. Methanol's use in the chemical industry, coupled with its liquid state under normal conditions, makes it an intriguing alternative. While methanol production is currently predominantly based on natural gas, there is a growing emphasis on renewable production methods enabling bio-methanol and e-methanol, which could potentially make methanol a renewable fuel.In compression ignition engines, methanol exhibits unique combustion characteristics. Its higher heat of vaporization, coupled with the higher mass that must be injected, creates a significant cooling effect in the combustion chamber. While this effect reduces temperatures and mitigates nitrogen oxide (NOx) generation, it also poses challenges for ignition, particularly during start-up and colder conditions.The objective of this doctoral thesis was to investigate techniques that could facilitate single-fuel methanol CI ignition and provide recommendations for which concepts to further develop. To identify which concepts to investigate a literature review was conduct