Cooper Machinery Services (Cooper), a portfolio company of Arcline Investment Management, has successfully tested a slow-speed integral engine running on a hydrogen (H2) fuel blend (70% natural gas and 30% hydrogen by volume). This week’s groundbreaking achievement comes 10 months after the announcement of Cooper’s joint hydrogen research project with a major U.S. gas pipeline company to demonstrate the safe operating range of H2 blends in large-bore internal combustion engines.
In March 2022, Cooper became the first company to successfully run an integral engine using a hydrogen blend when they utilized a fuel blend of 5% H2 by volume. Engineers continued testing increasingly higher H2 blends throughout the year to explore what could be achieved, and the results have exceeded what was thought possible.
Cooper Machinery Services (Cooper), a portfolio company of Arcline Investment Management, has successfully tested a slow-speed integral engine running on a hydrogen (H2) fuel blend (70% natural gas and 30% hydrogen by volume). This week’s groundbreaking achievement comes 10 months after the announcement of Cooper’s joint hydrogen research project with a major U.S. gas pipeline company to demonstrate the safe operating range of H2 blends in large-bore internal combustion engines.
In March 2022, Cooper became the first company to successfully run an integral engine using a hydrogen blend when they utilized a fuel blend of 5% H2 by volume. Engineers continued testing increasingly higher H2 blends throughout the year to explore what could be achieved, and the results have exceeded what was thought possible.
“Cooper’s hydrogen development has progressed beyond expectations. Traditional thinking was that engines in our industry could potentially operate with a hydrogen blend containing up to 15% H2. To achieve 30% in a slow-speed integral engine-compressor with a corresponding reduction in methane is a major achievement for Cooper and the industry overall,” said Cooper CEO John Sargent.
The Cooper test was conducted at their slow-speed integral engine test cell at corporate headquarters located in Houston, Texas. The test engine is a CleanBurn Plus™ two-stroke AJAX® 2802 with 15” piston bore, 16” power stroke, and a speed range of 360-440 RPM. Cooper selected the AJAX engine due to the similarities of its combustion system to that of the large fleet of the other engine brands the company services (Clark, Cooper-Bessemer®, Ingersoll Rand, and Worthington).
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