Experimental investigations of a four-stroke single cylinder direct injection diesel engine operated on dual fuel mode with producer gas as inducted fuel and Honge oil and its methyl ester (HOME) as injected fuels

Abstract

In order to meet the energy requirements, there has been growing interest in alternative fuels like biodiesels, methyl alcohol, ethyl alcohol, biogas, hydrogen and producer gas to provide a suitable diesel oil substitute for internal combustion engines. Vegetable oils present a very promising alternative to diesel oil since they are renewable and have similar properties. Vegetable oils offer almost the same power output with slightly lower thermal efficiency when used in diesel engine [Srivastava A, Prasad R. Triglycerides-based diesel fuels. Renew Sustain Energy Rev 2000;4:111-33. [1]; Vellguth G. Performance of vegetable oils and their monoesters as fuels for diesel engines. SAE 831358, 1983. [2]; Demirbas A. Biodiesel production from vegetable oils via catalytic and non-catalytic supercritical methanol transesterification methods. Int J Prog Energy Combust Sci 2005;31:466-87. [3]; Jajoo BN, Keoti RS. Evaluation of vegetable oils as supplementary fuels for diesel engines. Altin R, Cetinkaya S, Yucesu HS. The potential of using vegetable oil fuels as fuel for diesel engines. Int J Energy Convers Manage 2000;42:529-38, 248. [5]; Gajendra Babu MK, Chandan Kumar Das LM. Experimental investigations on a Karanja oil methyl ester fuelled DI diesel engine. SAE 2006-01-0238, 2006. [6]; Agarwal D, Kumar Agarwal A. Performance and emission characteristics of a Jatropha oil (preheated and blends) in a direct injection compression ignition engine. Int J Appl Therm Eng 2007;27:2314-23. [7]]. Research in this direction with edible oils have yielded encouraging results, but their use as fuel for diesel engine has limited applications due to higher domestic requirement [Scholl Kyle W, Sorenson Spencer C. Combustion Analysis of soyabean oil methyl ester in a direct injection diesel engine. SAE 930934, 1993. [8]; Nwafor OMI. Effect of advanced injection timing on the performance of rapeseed oil in diesel engines. Int J Renew Energy 2000;21:433-44. [9]; Nwafor OMI. The effect of elevated fuel inlet temperature on performance of diesel engine running on neat vegetable oil at constant speed conditions. Renew Energy 2003;28:171-81.[10]]. In view of this, Honge oil (Pongamia Pinnata Linn) being non-edible oil could be regarded as an alternative fuel for CI engine applications. The viscosity of Honge oil is reduced by transesterification process to obtain Honge oil methyl ester (HOME).Gasification is a process in which solid biomass is converted into a mixture of combustible gases, which complete their combustion in an IC engine. Hence, producer gas can act as a promising alternative fuel, especially for diesel engines by substituting considerable amount of diesel fuels. Downdraft moving bed gasifiers coupled with IC engine are a good choice for moderate quantities of available biomass, up to 500 kW of electric power. Hence, bioderived gas and vegetable liquids appear more attractive in view of their friendly environmental nature. Since vegetable oils produce higher smoke emissions, dual fuel operation could be adopted for improving th...

An experimental investigation on the cylinder pressure of a biogas-diesel dual fuel engine

“…The sampling interval of our measurement and analysis system was set to 0.25°crank angle (CA), 0.5°CA and 1°CA. The characteristic parameters of combustion process such as the timing of combustion, maximum combustion pressure, maximum pressure rise rate and corresponding phases were obtained [4,21,22] . The gasifier is of negative pressure downdraft type.…”

Combustion characteristics of diesel engine using producer gas and blends of Jatropha methyl ester with diesel in mixed fuel mode

“…EGT in dual fuel mode was higher than that of single fuel mode at all load conditions. This might be due to the excess of energy supplied to the engine in dual fuel mode (Banapurmath 2008). …”

“…Many researchers have studied the combustion and emission characteristics of the dual-fuel engines fueled with gaseous-liquid fuels. Banapurmath et al (2008) tested a single cylinder, four stroke direct injection diesel engine with producer gas and honge oil and its methyl ester (HOME) in dual fuel mode and reported a slight reduction in thermal efficiency and increased smoke, HC and CO levels. Also HOME-producer gas operation showed improvement in heat release rate compared to neat honge oil-producer gas dual fuel operation.…”

The Effect of Cyclo-Alkane Additives in Waste Cooking Oil B20 Fuel on a Single Cylinder DI Diesel Engine

“…Since bio-diesel contains 11% oxygen, it has a lower heating-value than fossil diesel [7]. If 100% biodiesel is used, then it is required to burn 5-6% more fuel volumetrically, in order to maintain the same level of power and performance in an engine [8]. It was also reported that the use of biodiesel in a conventional diesel engine results in substantial reduction in un-burnt hydrocarbon (UBHC), carbon monoxide (CO), particulate matter (PM) emission, and oxides of nitrogen (NO X ) [9].…”