Reduction In Smoke Emissions Research Articles

Effects of PODE/diesel blends on particulate matter emission and particle oxidation characteristics of a common-rail diesel engine

The current study focused on the particulate matter emissions of polyoxymethylene dimethyl ethers (PODE)/diesel blends with PODE blending ratios of 0, 10%, 20% and 30% have been experimentally investigated in a common-rail engine. The influences of PODE blending ratio on the smoke emission, particle size distribution and particle oxidation characteristic are discussed. Results show that the addition of PODE in diesel fuel can effectively reduce smoke emission and its decreasing range becomes larger with increasing PODE blending ratio. With the increment in PODE blending ratio, the particle concentration distribution moves towards the direction of small particle size, and the total particle number concentrations decrease. Besides, the peak values of particle number concentration, surface area concentration, and volume concentration are all decreased. Adding PODE in diesel fuel increases the soluble organic fraction (SOF) content of particles, rises maximum weight loss rate of particles, and lower the peak temperature of particles. Also, the activation energy of pyrolysis reaction of particles decreases, which indicates that the oxidation of particles becomes easier as PODE blending ratio increases. The apparent morphology of particles was measured by scanning electron microscope, and the results show that the morphology of particles sample are mostly chain like or flocculent.

Studies on the effect of higher compression ratio on the engine behaviour fuelled with used transformer oil

ABSTRACT Preliminary investigations on the utilisation of used transformer oil (UTO) as an alternative fuel in a single cylinder, four stroke diesel engine developing 4.4 kW power at a rated speed of 1500 rpm showed a marginal increase in brake thermal efficiency (BTE) and reduction in smoke emission when this was operated with optimum injection timing of 20° bTDC and injection pressure of 23,000 kPa. The present investigation is aimed to study the effect of varying the compression ratio (CR) of the same engine fuelled with UTO, under optimum injection timing and injection pressure. At lower CR, the maximum cylinder pressure, ignition delay, BTE and unburned hydrocarbon (HC) emission decreased by 10.3%, 10.7%, 3.4% and 17.5% respectively at full load, whereas nitric oxide (NO) emission increased by 5.9% at full load. The study also reveals that at higher CR the maximum cylinder pressure, BTE, HC and NO emission increased by 11.2%, 22.3%, 2.7% and 30.6% respectively at full load, whereas it shows 15.1% shorter ignition delay at full load.

Thermo-mechanical assessment of gas turbine combustor tile using locally varying thermal barrier coating thickness

Hotspot formation in Gas Turbine combustor tiles can reduce their life drastically, so they require considerable attention to improve durability. In the present article, an innovative method is proposed to increase the thickness of Thermal Barrier Coating locally in the hotspot regions to enhance thermal insulation and life capabilities of combustor tiles. In this method a pre-dent is made on the substrate in the distress regions which leads to the addition of extra Thermal Barrier Coating thickness. Experimental validation and thermo-mechanical assessments are carried out numerically using Rolls-Royce in house Finite Element codes. The result shows, through thickness temperature reduction by 13% which leads to cooling efficiency improvement by 3%. It enabled an improved low cycle fatigue life by four times and reduced the component’s overall weight by 3%. Further this method reduced the coolant air which can be diverted to core combustion to help reduce smoke emissions. Usage of this method requires minimum cost addition to the manufacturing process with a benefit on the weight, performance, and durability of the combustors.

Investigation of the effect of barium-based additive on smoke and NOx emissions of a diesel engine fueled with conventional and biodiesel fuels

Nowadays, increasing energy demand and environmental and air pollution issues have spread the use of alternative fuels such as biodiesel in diesel engines. While the advantages of biodiesel that are comparable to petroleum-based diesel fuels and low unburned HC, carbon monoxide and smoke (soot) emissions make the use of this fuel environmentally significant; high NOx emissions are still a problem to be solved. The formation of decreased smoke reducing radiative heat transfer from combustion chamber in biodiesel engines and increase in formation of NOx due to rise in flame temperature are among the reasons reported for high NOx in the literature. In this study, in a diesel engine using biodiesel, soot emissions produced by petroleum diesel fuel were reduced to biodiesel level by using metallic additive (Ba), and NOx emissions were compared. When the amount of Ba in the fuel was increased, there was a significant decrease in the smoke emissions, but in this case, NOx emissions decreased slightly, while they were expected to increase. When NOx emissions of diesel and biodiesel were compared for the same or similar smoke emissions, it was seen that high NOx emissions were achieved with biodiesel. As a result, although Ba additive reduced smoke emissions, it was seen that its effect on NOx formation was not very clear.

What Motivates Behavior Change? Analyzing User Intentions to Adopt Clean Technologies in Low-Resource Settings Using the Theory of Planned Behavior

Understanding and integrating the user’s decision-making process into product design and distribution strategies is likely to lead to higher adoption rates and ultimately increased impacts, particularly for those products that require a change in habit or behavior such as clean energy technologies. This study applies the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) in design for global development, where understanding the tendency to adopt beneficial technologies based on parsimonious approaches is critical to programmatic impact. To investigate robustness and applicability of behavioral models in a data scarce setting, this study applies TPB to the adoption of biomass cookstoves in a sample size of two remote communities in Honduras and Uganda before and after a trial period. Using multiple ordinal logistic regressions, the intention to adopt the technology was modeled. Results quantify the influence of these factors on households’ intentions to cook their main meals with improved cookstoves. For example, the intention of participants with slightly stronger beliefs regarding the importance of reducing smoke emissions was 3.3 times higher than average to cook more main meals with clean cookstoves. The quantitative method of this study enables technology designers to design and develop clean technologies that better suit user behavior, needs, and priorities. In addition, the data driven approach of this study provides insights for policy makers to design policies such as subsidies, information campaigns, and supply chains that reflect behavioral attributes for culturally tailored clean technology adoption initiatives. Furthermore, this work discusses potential sources of bias and statistical challenges in data-scarce regions, and outlines methods to address them.

Effect of microalgae, tyre pyrolysis oil and Jatropha biodiesel enriched with diesel fuel on performance and emission characteristics of CI engine

The objective of present paper, the exhaust emission parameters blend of Jatropha, tyre pyrolysis oil and spirulina microalgae biodiesel diesel engine with a rated power of 3.5 kW at 1500 rpm. The engine was operated at constant compression ratio of 17.5 with different engine loads were applied. Comparative parameters measures of brake thermal efficiency (BTE), fuel consumption, exhaust temperature, sauter mean diameter, smoke emission, particulate matter (PM), oxides of nitrogen (NOX) and carbon dioxide (CO2) have been presented. The secondary blends (JMETPO20, SP20) meaningfully reduction in smoke, PM and NOX emissions from the diesel engine, while the improved CO2 emissions. The result shows reduction in smoke, PM and NOX emission was observed with 20% blends. Reduction in smoke emission by 11.58%, 18.33%, PM emission by 5.3%, 33.1% and NOX emission by 10.2%, 10.66% but CO2 emission slightly higher for JMETPO20 (80% JME + 20% TPO) and SP20 (80% diesel + 20% spirulina) respectively at full load condition. Numerical and experimental results are valid for diesel engines of conventional diesel fuel, using 220 bar fuel injection pressure. Validation work is performed through the proposed numerical solver using experimental results.

Investigations of spirulina, waste cooking and animal fats blended biodiesel fuel on auto-ignition diesel engine performance, emission characteristics

This paper presents the engine characteristics of investigations carried out on a single-cylinder, direct injection diesel engine operated with B20 (20% biodiesel and 80% diesel) blend fuel from 1st generation (coconut, palm, rapeseed, soybean), 2nd generation (cottonseed, Jatropha curcas, jojoba, karanja) and 3rd generation (fish oil, spirulina, waste cooking oil, animal fats) feedstocks levels of biodiesel and their effects on compression ignition engine with a rated power of 3.5 kW at 1500 rpm. The diesel engine was operated at three different compression ratios of 16.5, 17.5 and 18.5 when different loads (25%, 50%, 75%, and 80%) were applied. Comparative measures for the characteristics of brake thermal efficiency (BTE), specific fuel consumption (SFC), ignition delay (ID), exhaust gas temperature (EGT), smoke, particulate matter (PM), oxides of nitrogen (NOX), sulfur dioxide (SO2), cylinder pressure and heat release curve were determined. A reduction in BTE, EGT, ID was observed with B20 blend fuel from the 1st, 2nd and 3rd generation levels of biodiesel with the advanced injection timing. The significant reduction of smoke emission by 55.3% and PM emission by 51.8% were seen for jojoba, NOX was reduced by 39.6% for Jatropha curcas and SO2 by 46.54% for fish oil at full load conditions with the compression ratio of 17.5 powered with B20 blend of biodiesel. The simulation and experiment results are verified at the same operating conditions.

Research of Energy and Ecological Indicators of a Compression Ignition Engine Fuelled with Diesel, Biodiesel (RME-Based) and Isopropanol Fuel Blends

This article presents the results of a study of energy and ecological indicators at different engine loads (BMEP) adjusting the Start of Injection (SOI) of a Compression Ignition Engine fuelled with blends of diesel (D), rapeseed methyl ester (RME)-based biodiesel and isopropanol (P). Fuel blends mixed at D50RME45P5, D50RME40P10 and D50RME30P20 proportions were used. Alcohol-based fuels, such as isopropanol, were chosen because they can be made from different biomass-based feedstocks and used as additives with diesel fuel in diesel engines. Diesel fuel and its blend with 10% alcohol have almost the same thermal efficiency (BTE). In further examination of energy and ecological indicators, combustion parameters were analysed at SOI 6 CAD BTDC using AVL BOOST software (BURN subprogram). Increasing alcohol content in fuel blends led to a reduced cetane number, which prolonged the ignition delay phase and intensified heat release in the premixed combustion phase. Higher combustion temperatures and oxygen content in the fuel blends increased NOx emissions. Lower C/H ratios and higher O2 levels affected by RME and isopropanol reduced smoke emissions.

Experimental studies on biodiesel production from leather industry waste fat and its effect on diesel engine characteristics

In this study, biodiesel was produced from the leather industry waste fat (LWFB), which is harmful to the environment and paid for its disposal. The methyl ester yield of the produced biodiesel was found to be 86.8%. LWFB was mixed with petroleum diesel fuel at 10% and 30% ratios and was named LWFB10 and LWFB30, respectively. The impacts of LWFB blends on a single cylinder four stroke cycle direct injection diesel engine operating characteristics were analyzed under different engine loads and speeds. The results showed that the LWFB blends began to be injected earlier than petroleum-based diesel fuel. The ignition delay was almost the same for all test fuels since the cetane number of LWFB is the same as the reference diesel fuel. The combustion duration of LWFB blends were shorter at all engine loads and speeds than diesel fuel. The peak values of cylinder pressure and heat release rate of LWFB blends were almost the same as the diesel fuel. It was noticed that the brake specific fuel consumption values of LWFB blends were higher than the reference diesel fuel at all engine loads and speeds and brake thermal efficiency was inversely proportional to brake specific fuel consumption as expected. It was also found that LWFB blends reduced smoke emissions but did not cause a significant change in NOx emissions.

Experimental investigation to optimize fuel injection strategies and compression ratio on single cylinder DI diesel engine operated with FOME biodiesel

The present experimental investigation is devoted to optimize the nozzle geometry and compression ratio on single cylinder DI diesel engine fuelled with Fish Oil Methyl Ester (FOME) biodiesel. The FOME biodiesel with 20%, 40%, 60% and 80% are blended with diesel. The experiments have been conducted at three compression ratios 16.5:1, 17.5:1 and 18.5:1 at 240 bar and 260 bar IOP (Injection Opening Pressure) with 3 holes and 4 holes fuel injectors having 0.20 mm and 0.25 mm orifice diameter respectively. And these results are compared with pure diesel. The experimental results showed that the biodiesel blends have slightly lesser brake thermal efficiency and reduced smoke emissions in contrast to pure diesel. The blend B40D60 gives better results in comparison to all other blends with respect to brake thermal efficiency (BTE) and smoke emissions at compression ratio (CR) 17.5:1 and 4 hole fuel injector having 0.25 mm diameter at 260 bar IOP. Hence this is the optimized blend operating condition for improved brake thermal efficiency (27.15%) of FOME biodiesel with reduced smoke (14.34 HSU) emissions.

Influence of nozzle hole diameter on combustion and emission characteristics of diesel engine under pilot injection mode

Present work was divided in two different parts. In first part, an experimental study was carried out to analyze the effect of dwell on diesel engine combustion and emission characteristics. Experimental data showed that shorter dwell results in improved specific fuel consumption (SFC) but with increased smoke emissions penalty. To overcome the disadvantage of higher smoke emissions associated with shorter dwell, an effort was made to reduce smoke emissions under pilot injection mode by changing nozzle hole diameter (NHD) while keeping rest of the injection parameters unchanged. In second part, this was done numerically by using commercial Converge 3-D computational fluid dynamics (CFD) tool. In addition to baseline NHD (0.120 mm), two other NHDs i.e. 0.08 mm and 0.160 mm were considered. Numerical results showed that for given injection parameters, lower NHD resulted in faster evaporation of injected fuel as well as greater homogeneity of the mixture prepared due to better air entrainment inside fuel spray and hence led to overall faster combustion process. This faster combustion process subsequently reduced the time available for spray interactions. Therefore, in spite of getting further shortening of dwell in case of 0.08 mm NHD compared to other two cases, soot emissions were reduced by 87.2% when NHD was reduced from 0.160 mm to 0.08 mm. However, nitric oxide (NO) emission was found to increase by around 43% when NHD was reduced from 0.160 mm to 0.08 mm.

An assessment on injection pressure and timing to reduce emissions on diesel engine powered by renewable fuel

Fuel injection pressure and fuel injection timing are significant injection parameters, which have a greater impact on engine performance, combustion, and emission. The main focus of this work is on improving the emissions and performance of the single cylinder diesel engine by changing the injection parameters with the engine being powered by novel Syzygium cumini oil biodiesel at various proportions (i.e., B30,70,100). In addition to that, the investigations were directed towards achieving the effective usage of biodiesel for the substitution of fast depleting diesel fuel. The experimental work was conducted on single cylinder, water-cooled, direct injection compression ignition engine at a constant speed of 1500 rpm with static fuel injection timing 23° before top dead centre and pressure of 200 bar. The engine tests were conducted at different fuel injection pressures (200, 220, 240 and 260 bar) and different injection timings (21, 23 and 25 oCA BTDC). Advancing the injection timing by 2 deg crank angle and increasing the fuel injection pressure to 240 bar resulted in superior performance. For instance, brake thermal efficiency of diesel and B30 increased by 17.85% and 16.66% respectively. While retarding fuel injection timing to 21-degree crank angle had an adverse effect on engine performance. B30 blend gave a superior performance compared with the other biodiesel blends. By advancing injection timing and increasing fuel injection pressure, hydrocarbon and carbon monoxide emissions for B30 blend were found to be 46.15% and 15.9% lesser than static fuel injection conditions. Maximum of 28.7% reduction in smoke emission was observed for advancing injection timing and increasing fuel injection pressure compared with the static injection conditions. But, nitric oxide emissions were relatively higher for advance injection timing and higher fuel injection pressure. The results led to the decision that advance injection timing and increasing fuel injection pressure could be chosen as better injection parameters for a diesel engine being powered by novel Syzygium cumini oil biodiesel with the massive reduction in emissions.

Experimental investigation to improve performance and emission characteristics of a diesel engine by using n-butanol as additive to the biodiesel-diesel blends

Fossil fuels are non-renewable resources and are limited in supply. The combustion of these fuels produces environmental pollution with the release of dangerous gases like Nitrogen oxides, Carbon monoxide and Carbonaceous soot. In this sense, fuel like biodiesel produced from vegetable oils can be considered as a better alternative to the fossil fuels. For this study, waste cooking oil biodiesel is used. In this work, the effect of addition of n-butanol on the performance and emission characteristics of diesel engine running at the speed of 2300 rpm is investigated. The biodiesel is prepared by transesterification process using KOH as catalyst. n-Butanol is added to B20 blend in varying volume percentages of 5, 10 and 15 to evaluate its effect on performance and emission characteristics. It is observed that BU15 possesses better performance characteristics among n-butanol blends compared to B20 with an average decrease of 18% in BSFC and increase of 21% in BTE at high loads. The experimental results showed that NOx and CO2 emissions were further reduced by 19% and 28% respectively with the addition of butanol. There has been reduction in smoke emissions by 4.7% but an increase of 22% in HC emissions for n-butanol blends.

Effect of manifold injection of methanol/n-pentanol in safflower biodiesel fuelled CI engine

This paper intends to study the influence of methanol and n-pentanol pre-injection in the inlet manifold with safflower oil biodiesel (B100) as base fuel replacing diesel. Safflower oil biodiesel was prepared through the transesterification process. Experiments were conducted in a single cylinder CI engine with the test fuels to evaluate the performance, emission and combustion parameters. Methanol and n-pentanol were injected in the inlet manifold along with intake air which enters the combustion chamber during the intake stroke. Both methanol and n-pentanol were injected 10% and 30% on a mass basis along with B100. The results demonstrated that the brake thermal efficiency in comparison to neat biodiesel operation is higher with methanol and n-pentanol injection. On 10% mass basis, the efficiency is higher with n-pentanol engine operation than methanol whereas the trend is opposite when 30% mass percentage of alcohols is used, due to higher heat release with methanol since its latent heat of vaporization is highest. The HC, CO and NOx emissions were higher with alcohol injection. Whereas the smoke emissions reduced with alcohol injection. The reduction in smoke emissions is due to homogeneous mixture formation between the pre-injected alcohols and air and less amount of biodiesel injected in this mixture. The increase in the mass percentage of alcohol tends to lower the smoke emissions further.

Effect of nano-fluid on reducing the smoke emissions from diesel engine

This study examines the effect of concentration and flow-rate of CeO2 nano-fluid to reduce smoke emissions from a diesel engine. Taguchi-Grey relational-based multi-response optimization method was employed for test-plan. Results revealed that nano-fluid flow-rate and its concentration have a positive impact on smoke emissions reduction in a diesel engine. It is confirmed that the results obtained in the experimentations are in line with the calculated values obtained Taguchi technique. The usage of nano-fluid in the tailpipe is an effective way of reducing Smoke emissions from a diesel engine.

Combined effect of oxygenates and injection timing for low emissions and high performance in a diesel engine using multi-response optimisation

This study applies L9 orthogonal array of Taguchi design to obtain an optimum combination of oxygenated additive, its blending proportion with diesel and injection timing in a naturally aspirated, direct-injection diesel engine with an objective to achieve maximum reduction in smoke emissions with minimum increase in NOx emissions and minimum decrease in brake thermal efficiency (BTE) at various load conditions. Experiments are designed based on design of experiments (DOE) method to reduce the number of trials. Multi-response signal-to-noise ratio (MRSN) technique is incorporated into the conventional taguchi design to obtain the optimum level of factors according to the set objective. Confirmation experiment is conducted to verify the predicted optimum combination of factors and the results were compared in the same engine operated with baseline diesel fuel injected at its original injection timing. The results indicated that the response variables presented significant improvements with the predicted combination, thus validating the use of Taguchi method in reducing emissions and improving performance simultaneously.

The combined effect of low viscous biofuel and EGR on NO-smoke tradeoff in a biodiesel engine—an experimental study

The present study aims to study the effect of low viscous biofuel, namely pine oil (PO) and orange oil (O) blending with Jatropha methyl ester (JOME) along with exhaust gas recirculation (EGR) on NO-smoke tradeoff in a single-compression ignition (CI) engine. Two blends of pine oil and orange oil (30% by volume) with JOME were prepared and tested at 10%, 15%, and 20% EGR rates for various load conditions and compared with base fuels. JOME operation increased NO emission by 4% and reduced smoke opacity by 10% in comparison to diesel at maximum load condition. Poor physical properties of JOME, namely high viscosity and inferior volatility leads to reduced brake thermal efficiency with higher HC and CO emissions. Blends of JOME with low viscous biofuel reduces smoke emission with a further increase in NO emission in comparison to JOME as a result of combustion enhancement. Addition of EGR with JOME70 + PO30 and JOME70 + O30 aids in the reduction of NO emission with a slight increase in smoke opacity. Considering the NO-smoke tradeoff, JOME70 + O30 + EGR (10%) is optimum, NO emission is reduced by 14% and 11% in comparison to JOME and diesel and smoke opacity is reduced by 5% and 15% in comparison to JOME and diesel at maximum load, respectively.

An experimental investigation into engine characteristics fueled with Lal ambari biodiesel and its blends

Nowadays the production of biodiesel from non-edible vegetable oil feedstock is attaining more attention than edible vegetable oil for the replacement of diesel fuel. The novelty of this experimental paper is that it discussed the new biodiesel feedstock as a substitute fuel for a CI engine that has not drawn much consideration among other researchers. Diesel, Lal ambari biodiesel and its blends were used for conducting a short-term test and their effects on CI engine characteristics under different loading conditions have been evaluated. Engine tests have led to the assessment of the performance parameters such as exhaust gas temperature, brake thermal efficiency and brake specific fuel emission characteristics corresponding to oxides of nitrogen, carbon dioxide and smoke and combustion characteristics. These include heat release rate, the maximum rate of pressure rise, cylinder pressure and ignition delay; they were recorded and analyzed furthermore to decide the ideal fuel blend. Results show that the BTE for blend LA20 decreased by 2.5%, while the BSFC increased by 4.4% more than diesel at full load condition. Reduction in smoke emission was recorded for LA20 by 16.6%, while on the other hand, CO2 emissions increased by 3.5% compared to diesel fuel at full load condition. The HRR and cylinder pressure was lower for biodiesel, and its blends at full load condition. The experimental result proved that Lal ambari biodiesel and its blends could be a potential alternative fuel for a CI engine.

Combustion and emission characteristics of tamarind seed biodiesel-diesel blends in a compression ignition engine

An experimental investigation is carried out to evaluate the performance and emission characteristics using Tamarind seed biodiesel and its blends in a single cylinder diesel engine. The experiments were carried out using four blends namely Diesel, B10 (10% Biodiesel–90% diesel), B20 (20% Biodiesel–80% diesel) and B100 (100% Biodiesel). In this current work, a novel approach is done in using the tamarind seed oil biodiesel as an alternative fuel in CI engines. Experimental results show that a marginal improvement of cylinder pressure for B10 compared to diesel and significant improvement of heat release rate is observed for B100 and B10. Emission wise, CO and HC emissions were reduced drastically with slightly increased BSEC and NOx. Except for B10 fuel blend, all the blends showed reduced smoke emissions for all the engine load conditions.

Experimental investigation of iso-butanol/diesel reactivity controlled compression ignition combustion in a non-road diesel engine

As non-road engine emission control programs are developed largely in number of countries around the world, adopting a high efficiency and low emission combustion techniques has become essential. Flexible fuel operation using in-cylinder blending technique is a primary option for using higher octane fuel in a non-road diesel engine to mitigate emissions and fossil fuel dependency. In the present study, iso-butanol/diesel dual fuel reactivity controlled compression ignition concept is preferred considering the benefits of iso-butanol over other alcohol fuels and better combustion control over other low temperature combustion concepts. An experimental investigation is performed on a suitably modified single cylinder non-road diesel engine for the entire load range (0–100% engine full load) focusing on the effect of operating parameters (iso-butanol mass fraction, diesel injection timing, diesel injection pressure, diesel mass in split injection, and intake air temperature) on the dual fuel combustion, performance and emission characteristics. The reactivity controlled compression ignition combustion is analyzed at each load condition and the best operating points are selected based on brake thermal efficiency and emissions. The results indicated that increase in iso-butanol mass fraction with advanced start of injection of direct injected diesel fuel showed a 99% reduction in oxides of nitrogen and a 91% reduction in smoke emissions with 4.5% increase in brake thermal efficiency. Further the drawback in dual fuel combustion, hydrocarbon emission is reduced by 65% with an increase of intake air temperature from 303 K to 338 K. Also, both hydrocarbon and carbon monoxide emissions are reduced with increase in diesel injection pressure and mass of diesel fuel injected in first injection due to the enhanced mixture formation.