A Comparative Study of Emission Reduction Performance of Rare Earth Hydroxide Fuel Additives on Marine Diesel Engines

Abstract

To deal with the environmental pollution caused by diesel engine exhaust gas, this paper calls for the use of fuel additives to improve the fuel quality or combustion quality to reduce the generation of harmful components in diesel engine exhaust gas. Based on the excellent REDOX capacity of rare earth elements, rare earth hydroxide is adopted as fuel additive. Firstly, the rare earth hydroxide is prepared, the contributory factors are analyzed, and the properties are characterized. Then through the building diesel engine test platform, different concentrations of rare earth hydroxide additives (60 mg/L, 80 mg/L and 100 mg/L) are respectively added to 0# diesel oil to make three kinds of oil samples, and the comparison test is conducted to compare with 0# diesel oil. The emission reduction ability of rare earth hydroxide additives is tested by measuring the content of harmful components in diesel exhaust gas. The experimental results show that the emission reduction performance of lanthanum hydroxide is better than that of cerium hydroxide, the 80 mg/L is the optimal amount of lanthanum hydroxide additives, its maximum reduction of NOX, CO and HC emissions is 29.3%, 40.0% and 45.7% respectively, and its maximum increment of PM emissions is 9.5%. Therefore, suitable additives can be selected according to actual needs of PM emission.