Operational and Environmental Tests of Nanomembrane-Produced Rapeseed Biodiesel at a Small Biomass-Fuelled Power Plant

Abstract

The research tests an environmentally sustainable rapeseed biodiesel produced by transesterification in an electrospinning-manufactured nanomembrane reactor from polyvinylidene fluoride and a copolymer of vinylidene fluoride with tetrafluoroethylene. The Kalman filter analyzed the following hydrodynamic and kinematic characteristics of the atomized flow of diesel fuel, fatty acid methyl esters (FAME) of rapeseed oil and their mixtures B6 and B12: droplet mean diameter and number, their absolute velocity and the distributions of their velocity and trajectories in streamlined and forced swirling gas-liquid flows. Fuel combustion tests took place in a test rig equipped with a swirl burner while maintaining the equivalence ratio equal to 1 and the air/liquid ratio – 14.5. They determine effects of injection pressure, FAME content, and gas-liquid flow swirling on the flame structure and temperature, the fuel ignition delay. The emissions of CO, CO2, and NOx from burning biodiesels B6 and B12, FAME, and diesel fuel are compared. The effect of exhaust gas recirculation on concentrations of the main combustion gases (O2, CO, CO2, NOx) is estimated. The findings treated by the weighted sum method made it possible to suggest the optimal biofuel blend. An affordable green energy technology for small-scale power generation is proposed.