Evaluating the working characters of a diesel engine fueled with biodiesel blends added with rice husk Nano particles

Abstract

ABSTRACT The increase in energy demand due to the vehicular population and the corresponding increase in air pollution leads to some serious environmental impacts. This is more prominent in upcoming countries like India. Due to this, researches have to be conducted to identify a new energy source with reduced emissions output. The present research work deals with the improvement of performance characters and reduction of emission characters of a single cylinder 4 stroke diesel test engine powered by 20 & 40% by volume mixtures of Jatropha bio-diesel. Jatropha was selected considering the higher yield and also the easy availability of the fuel locally. Jatropha oil extracted was subjected to transesterification process to reduce its higher viscosity and is converted into Jatropha methyl ester. The blends were subjected to stability checks and then tested for its performance, emission, and combustion characters. The test was done for different loading conditions (0%, 25%, 50%, 75%, and 100% load) and the results were plotted for corresponding brake power values. Result illustrates that for J20 blend without additive produces 3.04% reduction in brake thermal efficiency (BTE) and fuel consumption increases by 6.96% at 100% load condition, compared with diesel. With the addition of Nano rice husk particles, there was a boost in the performance factors, the BTE increases by 4.21% and fuel consumption reduces by 2.8% for the J20 blend with 0.2% Nano rice husk addition. Adding to this, gaseous emissions such as hydrocarbon (HC), carbon monoxide (CO) & smoke opacity were seen reduced by 23.7%, 18.3%, and 21.4% and a corresponding increase in oxides of nitrogen emission by 11.3% compared to diesel at full load condition. Combustion characters also exhibited considerable enhancement when rice husk nanoparticles are added. It is finally concluded that 0.2% of rice husk nanoparticles added with 20% Jatropha methyl ester-diesel blend helps to improve the performance characters and reduces exhaust emissions.