Effect of fuel composition on properties of particles emitted from a diesel–natural gas dual fuel engine

Abstract

The effective density and mixing state of particles emitted from a natural gas–diesel dual fuel engine are investigated. Measurements were conducted at three different fuel compositions including 100% diesel fuel (0% NG), 75% diesel–25% natural gas (25% NG) and 50% diesel–50% NG (50% NG). The particle effective density was measured using a differential mobility analyzer in series with a centrifugal particle mass analyzer. A catalytic stripper at 350 °C was employed upstream of the centrifugal particle mass analyzer in order to remove the semi-volatile material from the solid particles to measure the effective density of non-volatile particles as well as the particle mixing state. A scanning mobility particle sizer was used to measure the particle size distribution. The particle mass concentration was also measured using several techniques including cavity-attenuated phase-shift particulate matter single-scattering albedo, laser-induced incandescence, thermal-optical analysis, photoacoustic spectroscopy, and integrated particle size distribution. The semi-volatile number and mass fractions are found to be lower than 15%. The effective density functions of particles at 0% and 25% NG are within 6% of each other; however, the effective density values of particles at 50% NG are lower than those of the 0% NG by up to 35%. The mass-mobility exponent varies in the range of 2.42–2.51 and 2.38–2.54 for undenuded and denuded particles, respectively. For the mass concentration measurements, photoacoustic spectroscopy agrees with thermal-optical analysis within 5%, while all the other techniques measure up to 50% deviations relative to thermal-optical analysis.