Experimental Investigations on Control of Exhaust Emissions of a Semi-Adiabatic Diesel Engine with Plastic Oil

Abstract

This paper concentrates on alternative fuel technology for diesel engine and environmental protection. The exhaust emissions from diesel engine cause severe health hazards when they are inhaled in.. They also cause environmental disorders. Hence control of these emissions is an immediate step. Vegetable oils and alcohols are important substitutes for diesel fuel, as they are renewable in nature. Though vegetable oils have comparable properties with diesel fuel, they have high viscosity and low volatility causing combustion problems in diesel engines. Alcohols have high volatility but low Cetane number (a measure of combustion quality in diesel engine). Plastic oil derived from waste plastic by the process of pyrolysis has equitant calorific value with diesel fuel. However, its viscosity is higher than diesel fuel calls for semi adiabatic diesel engine (SADE). The concept of semi adiabatic diesel engine is to reduce heat flow to the coolant there by providing hot combustion chamber used for burning high viscous fuels like plastic oil. Semi adiabatic engine consisted of air gap insulated piston with stainless steel crown and stainless steel gasket. The exhaust emissionsof particulate matter (PM), carbon monoxide (CO), nitrogen oxide levels (NOx ) and Un-burnt hydrocarbons (UBHC), with plastic oil were determined with conventional engine (CE) and SADE with varied injection timing at full load operation of the engine. Injection timing was varied with an electronic sensor. PM was determined by AVL Smoke meter, while NOx , CO and UBHC were measured by Netel Chromatograph multi gas analyzer at full load operation of the engine. Exhaust gas recirculation (EGR) at optimum value of 10% flow rate was provided to control the emissions. The data were compared with neat diesel operation on conventional engine with and without EGR.