Preparation, characterization and effect of calcium carbonate and titanium dioxide nano additives on fuel properties of tire oil diesel blend

Abstract

ABSTRACTThe present study deals with the preparation, characterization, and effect of and Calcium carbonate (CaCO3) and Titanium dioxide (TiO2) Nano additives on the fuel properties in the tire oil–diesel fuel blend. The above said Nanoparticles were prepared by the ball milling method using toluene as the solvent. Tire oil was prepared from scrap tires by pyrolysis process in the temperature range of 400–650°C. The morphology and particle size were determined by means of Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM). From the SEM image, the particle size for CaCO3 and TiO2 was found to be 153nm and 99.2nm, respectively, which strongly confirms the particles size in Nano range. Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) Spectroscopy was used to study the chemical compounds in the Nanoparticles. The presence of peaks in the wavelength range of 700–500 cm−1 validates the presence of metallic compounds in the particles. The crystal structure of the Nanoparticles was determined by X-Ray Diffraction (XRD) technique and the Nano crystallite structure was calculated by using Debye-Scherer equation. The diffraction peaks obtained from the XRD patterns were indexed to the pure cubic fluorite structure of CaCO3 and TiO2. From the Debye Scherer’s equation the particle size for CaCO3 and TiO2 were found to be 24.48nm and 37.86 nm, respectively. Visualisation of the Nanoparticles in three dimensions was carried out by Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM) from which the maximum and minimum size of the particles was determined. The maximum and minimum particle sizes were found to be 99nm and 62nm for CaCO3 whereas for TiO2 it is found to be 76nm and 47nm, respectively. Particle size analyzer was used to calculate the average size of the particle. 1000 ppm of the prepared Nanoparticles was added to tire oil-diesel fuel blend (T20) by means of probe sonication and the phase stability of the blends with CaCO3 and TiO2 Nanoparticles were found to be −18.1 mV and −26.2 mV, respectively. The fuel properties such as viscosity, density, calorific value, flash point, cetane number, cloud point, and pour point were found to align with that of ASTM standards and can be considered as an alternate energy source in a Compression Ignition engine.