Analysis of the Influence of CO2 Concentration on a Spark Ignition Engine Fueled with Biogas

Abstract

Biogas is one of the alternative solutions that could reduce the usage of fossil fuels and production of greenhouse gas emissions, as biogas is considered as an alternative fuel with a short carbon cycle. During biogas production, organic matter is decomposed during an anaerobic digestion process. Biogas mainly consists of methane and carbon dioxide, of which the ratio varies depending on the raw material and parameters of the production process. Therefore, engine parameters should be adjusted in relationship with biogas composition. In this research, a spark ignition engine was tested for mixtures of biogas with 0 vol%, 20 vol%, 40 vol% and 50 vol% of CO2. In all experiments, two cases of spark timing (ST) were used; the first one is a constant spark timing (26 crank angle degrees (CAD) before top dead center (BTDC)) and the second one is an advanced spark timing (optimal for biogas mixture). Results show that increasing the CO2 concentration and using constant spark timing increases the mass burned fraction combustion duration by 90%, reduces the in-cylinder pressure and leads to a reduction in the brake thermal efficiency and nitrogen oxides emissions at all measurement points. However, the choice of optimal spark timing increases the brake thermal efficiency as well as hydrocarbon and CO2 emission.

Numerical Evaluation of the Effect of Fuel Blending with CO2 and H2 on the Very Early Corona-Discharge Behavior in Spark Ignited Engines

“…Simulations were run considering eight different test fuels whose composition was set based on literature findings on biogas composition [17][18][19][20]22] and hydrogen blending [9]. The composition of each fuel is shown in Figure 1: fuel no.…”

“…However, it was detected that the combination of hydrogen fuel and Corona ignition leads to a slight extension of the lean limit of classical ignition systems (φ 0.5 vs. 0.52, respectively) and shorter combustion duration. In light of what described on the effect of Corona discharge on ignitable mixtures including significant amount of hydrogen and carbon dioxide, the characterization of Corona-induced ignition at engine relevant conditions can be crucial also to assess the very early ignition behavior of biogas (CH 4 + CO 2 )-hydrogen blends in SI engines, in which hydrogen play the role of booster of the combustion properties and mixture dilution limit as reported in [13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20].…”

Overview of Energy Harvesting Technologies Used in Road Vehicles

“…Figure 1 shows the forecast of the investment size in individual market renewable energy sources (RES) until 2050. The energy transformation of many national economies is moving towards abandoning coal in favor of greater use of RES, including the share of wind energy [4,5], solar energy [6][7][8][9][10], hydro energy [11][12][13][14][15] and the development of alternative fuels, including biomass [16][17][18][19][20][21][22] and biofuels [23][24][25][26][27]. It is predicted that in 2050, the use of RES in electricity production may increase by as much as 70%.…”

Charging Electric Vehicles from Photovoltaic Systems—Statistical Analyses of the Small Photovoltaic Farm Operation

“…Despite these recent problems, the automotive industry has experienced tremendous development in the last two decades. It is visible, inter alia, in the improvement of the design of internal combustion engines (ICE) [3][4][5][6][7][8], the existing power supply systems for spark ignition engines [9][10][11][12] and diesel engines [13][14][15][16][17], the production and development of alternative fuels [18][19][20][21][22], and the development of innovative vehicle drives such as hybrid systems [23][24][25][26] or battery electric vehicles (BEV) [27][28][29]. Moreover, very advanced works are underway on the method of changing driving, i.e., development works on fully autonomous vehicles [30][31][32][33][34].…”