Investigation on performance, combustion and emission characteristics of biodiesel - Ethanol blends with hydrogen in CI engine

Abstract

The current research work focus on the utilization of hydrogen as a fuel in CI engine has been increased tremendously, since it is a zero-emission fuel. But higher self-ignition temperature than conventional fuel, makes to operate in dual fuel mode condition in CI engine. The diesel or biodiesel along with hydrogen in a CI engine results in the improvement in the performance but increase of NO. In order to minimize the NO emission, addition of ethanol with jamun B20 biodiesel blend (biodiesel-diesel-ethanol) and two ternary blends such as B20E05 and B20E10 are formed. In the present study, biodiesel along with H2 is admitted in the CI engine. Ethanol addition reduces combustion temperature and act as cetane improver for the biodiesel. This induces better combustion of the fuel and reduce NO. The biodiesel production from jamun seed is carried out through transesterification process. H2 of 4 lpm is allowed at the air inlet and jamun B20 blend is injected through the fuel injector. Improvement of brake thermal efficiency and increase in the NO are observed for the hydrogen with biodiesel operated CI engine. The performance and emission behaviors of CI engine done for the test samples. At full load condition (ternary blend) B20E05 assisted H2 shows the drastic reduction of NO emission of 8.2% than B20 assist H2 blend. In other hand emission like hydrocarbon, carbon monoxide and smoke opacity show a notable reduction for B20E05 blend assist H2 than other test sample fuel. The thermal efficiency is 30.98% for B20E05 assist H2 and it is 7.55% and 4.7% higher than B20 and B20E05 assist H2 blend respectively.