UNSW researchers have prototyped and tested a retrofit system that converts diesel engines to run on 90% hydrogen, radically reducing both carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide emissions while boosting efficiency by an impressive 26% in the process.

Running 10% diesel, the process is not a full green conversion for diesel engines, but it does offer a way for certain businesses to hugely reduce their emissions output without wastefully junking existing assets that could still remain useful for a long time.

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The retrofit system keeps the diesel injection system, but adds hydrogen injection directly to the cylinder, as well as independent control of injection timing for both the hydrogen and diesel systems. It doesn’t require particularly high-purity hydrogen, and the team has demonstrated that its “stratified” hydrogen injection technique, which creates pockets of higher and lower hydrogen concentrations in the cylinder, reduces the incidence of nitrous oxide emissions below that of a straight diesel.

Read more: New Atlas