Emission from a dual fuel operated diesel engine fuelled with Calophyllum Inophyllum biodiesel and producer gas

Abstract

In recent times, the rapid depletion of diesel fuel has resulted in its rising price and hazardous emission from the vehicles. Hence, an alternative fuel is immediately required for substituting diesel in order to improve the country's economic status and security. Therefore, this paper investigates the performance and emission characteristics of a diesel engine operated in dual fuel mode fuelled with calophyllum inophyllum oil methyl ester blends and rice husk generated producer gas. The engine test analysis was carried out at varying load conditions (0, 2, 4, 6, 8, 10 kW) keeping the producer gas flow rate constant i.e. at 21.69 kg/h. The experimental results depict that maximum diesel savings occurred for diesel with producer gas up to 82%, when correlated with the B20 biodiesel blend showing diesel savings of up to 80.6% at 8 kW of the optimum loading condition. Now, taking into account the emission parameter i.e. CO, CO2 and HC showed an increasing trend while, NOx and the smoke opacity reduced drastically for the dual operated mode. Hence, it might be concluded that the calophyllum inophyllum oil methyl ester with producer gas at a constant gas flow rate up to a 20% blend i.e. B20 can be utilised as potential fuel for current diesel engines without many engine modifications and problems.