EMISSION REDUCTION OF IC ENGINES BY USING WATER-IN-DIESEL EMULSION AND CATALYTIC CONVERTER

Abstract

IC engines, exhausting gaseous emissions and particulate matter, have long been regarded as one of the major air pollution sources, particularly in metropolitan areas and their extensive use throughout the world has called for better methods to curb these effects. Major IC engine emissions comprise of NOx, SOx, CO and particulate matter and these result due to incomplete combustion of fuel. Many pre-combustion and post-combustion treatments are implemented currently as emission norms are getting stringent by the day. In this paper, causes of emission formation were studied, for both petrol and diesel engines separately and tests were conducted to compare the results of the implemented methods. For diesel engines, NOx was found to be the largest pollutant, while for petrol engines, it was CO and HC. Various methods like EGR were studied and maintaining a low temperature was found to be the solution to reduce NOx in diesel engines and oxidation of CO and HC, for petrol engines. As the objectives of petrol and diesel engines differed, different methods were used considering basic individual requirement. Water/diesel (W/D) emulsified formulations are reported to reduce the emissions of NOx, CO and particulate matter (PM) without compensating the engine’s performance. In this research a new kind of emulsion was prepared by mixed surfactant method. In case of petrol engine, catalytic converter was successfully employed to reduce emissions to a great extent. Then performance and emission tests were conducted on a 661cc, multi-fuel (diesel and petrol) single cylinder, 4 stroke water cooled engine, with variable compression ratio. Comparison graphs were plotted to study the effects and effectiveness of the two methods was observed and satisfactory results were obtained.