The marine large 2-stroke dual fuel engine with lean burn pre-mixed combustion technology was awarded the Marine Engineering of the Year (DOKOU’s memorial award) 2017. This technology that many engineers had considered to be technically difficult to develop was invented by IHI, DU, and WinGD. When this new engine runs in gas mode, it emits little SOx and less GHG. Moreover, due to its higher NOx reduction capability, this has become the first 2-stroke engine that can comply with the IMO NOx Tier3 regulations without any exhaust gas after-treatment system. In addition, against all expectations, the authors successfully developed the world’s first large-size Dual-Fuel engine (X72DF) using this technology. Since several ships equipped with this engine have been launched into service, the Dual-Fuel engine has a significant impact on marine engineering. This paper describes the development history of and key points about this technology.
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