Ecology, Environment and Conservation Paper

EXPERIMENTAL INVESTIGATIONS ON EXHAUST EMISSIONS OFINSULATED ENGINE FUELLED WITH ACETYLENE, COTTONSEEDBIODIESEL MIXTURES

G. Vanya Sree, M.V.S. Murali Krishna and P. Usha Sri

Abstract

In the context of exhaustion of fossil fuels day by day due to heavy demand with the use of agriculturesector and transport sector, escalation of fuel prices in International Oil Market causing huge economicburden on developing countries like India and rise of pollution levels with fossil fuel, the conservation offossil fuels has become pertinent. Gaseous fuels have many merits over liquid fuels, as the pollutants emittedby gaseous fuels are low due to clean combustion, high calorific value in comparison with liquid fuels.Vegetable oils are good substitutes for diesel, as they are renewable, comparable calorific value and cetane(meausre of combustion quality) number when compared with neat diesel operation. However, thedisadvantages associated with vegetable oils such as high viscosity and low volatility cause combustionproblems in diesel engines. They can be rectified to some extent by converting them into biodiesel. In thisexperiment, cottonseed oil was used as alternative fuel for diesel fuel, as India is second producer ofCottonseed oil in the world. The drawbacks associated with vegetable oil were overcome, by adopting theprinciple of low heat rejection (LHR) consisted of air gap insulated piston engine. Investigations werecarried out with Acetylene gas as primary fuel inducted by port injection and cottonseed oil blended withoptimum quantity (20%) diethyl ether (DEE) was injected into the engine in conventional manner. Particulatematter (PM), oxides of nitrogen (NOx), carbon mono oxide (CO) levels and un-burnt hydro carbons (UBHC)are the exhaust emissions from a diesel engine. They cause health hazards, once they are inhaled in. Theyalso cause environmental effects like Green-house effect and Global Warming. Hence control of theseemissions is an immediate effect and an urgent step. The pollutants of PM, NOx, CO and UBHC weredetermined at full load operation of the engine with varied injection pressure and compared with test fuelon conventional engine. The maximum induction of Acetylene gaswas 35%, with CE, while it was 45%with LHR engine of total mass of diesel as full load operation. Particulate emissions were determined byAVL Smoke meter, while other emissions were measured by Netel Chromatograph multi-gas analyzer atfull load operation. These pollutants were drastically reduced with induction of Acetylene gasand furtherreduced with an increase of injection pressure.