Influence of Copper Oxide Nano-particles on Power and Combustion Characteristics of Industrial Waste Water Sourced Diesel Fuel.

Abstract

With the UN global target of achieving the net zero emissions by 2050, and the world energy demands, it is necessary to transit to renewable sources of energy. In this paper, Base fuel (BF) was extracted from the effluent discharge of Lube oil Nigeria using effluent management plant. A CuO nano particle synthesized from copper acetate and sodium hydroxide precursors was dispersed into the Base Fuel with varying percentage weights of 0.1 wt%, 0.2 wt%, 0.3 wt %, and 0.4 wt% by ultra sonication and the Nano copper fuels were labeled as BF.1, BF.2, BF.3 and BF.4, the nano fuel with 0.1wt% (BF.1) presented the best physico chemical properties of 0.883, 883.0, 109.2, 13.85, 123.0, 6.12,223 and -10.6 for Specific gravity @ 15°C, Density @ 15°C, Kg/m3, KV @ 40°C, cSt, KV @ 100°C, cSt, Viscosity Index (VI), TBN mg KOH/g, Flash Point (°C) and Pour Point, (°C) respectively. BF, BF.1 and ASTM SAE 40 were then tested on a diesel engine test rig at various engine speeds of 1500 rpm, 2000 rpm, and 2500 rpm and loads of 3, 6 and 9kg respectively. It was found that that performance and emission characteristics can be increased with the addition of 0.1 wt% Cu O nano-particle. The thermal efficiency (TE) increased by 2.80%, 4.48% and 3.13% respectively for BF, BF.1 and the Control sample. This is accompanied by an increased in the BMEP by 2.69%, 0.10% for the BF.1 and control while a reduction of 2.56% was observed for BF at the maximum load. The BF.1 shows 0.46% less NOx and Smoke emission was all most 4.3% less for BF.1 when compared to BF. At maximum load of 9kg, the CO emission BF.1 is lower than that of BF by 0.42%, the Nox emission was reduced by 9.28% and the CO2 is reduced by 0.41%.