Experimental study on regenerating fouled EGR cooler by NTPI technology

In order to investigate the regeneration effect of non-thermal plasma injection (NTPI) technology on fouled exhaust gas recirculation (EGR) cooler, NTPI regeneration apparatus and EGR cooler performance test system were built up. Results showed that non-thermal plasma (NTP) could peel off the deposit layer and improve the heat exchange performance effectively. The carbon removal energy efficiency of this NTPI regeneration setup was 22.46 g/kWh and the O3 utilization ratio was 96.50%. To get a deeper understanding of the regeneration effect, thermo-gravimetric analysis (TGA) and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) were introduced to investigate the variation of deposit layer’s physical and chemical characteristics before and after regeneration. Results showed that the content of soluble organic fraction (SOF) in deposit specimen decreased obviously, mainly because the carbonyls were effectively removed by NTP. Moreover, soot in deposit specimen was successfully activated by NTP.