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Experimental investigation into the effect of magnetic fuel reforming on diesel combustion and emissions running on wheat germ and pine oil

  • S. Thiyagarajan
    ,
  • Mohammad R. Herfatmanesh
    ,
  • V. Edwin Geo
    ,
  • Jun Peng
  • SRM Institute of Science and Technology
Research Output:
Contribution to journal
Article
 Peer-review

Open access

Sustainable Development Goals

  • SDG 3 - Good Health and Well-being
    SDG 3 Good Health and Well

Abstract

The present study aims to explore the effect of fuel ionisation on engine performance, emission and combustion characteristics of a twin cylinder compression ignition (CI) engine running on biofuel. Wheat germ oil (WGO) and pine oil (PO) have been identified as diesel fuel surrogates with high and low viscosities, respectively. High viscosity biofuels result in incomplete combustion due to poor atomisation and vaporisation which ultimately leads to insufficient fuel and air mixing to form a combustible mixture. Consequently, engines running on this type of fuel suffer from lower brake thermal efficiency (BTE) and higher soot emissions. In contrast, low viscosity biofuels exhibit superior combustion characteristics however they have a low cetane number which causes longer ignition delay and therefore higher NO emission. To overcome the limitations of both fuels, a fuel ionisation filter (FIF) with a permanent magnet is installed before the fuel pump which electrochemically ionises the fuel molecules and aids in quick dispersion of the ions. The engine used in this investigation is a twin cylinder tractor engine that runs at a constant speed of 1500 rpm. The engine was initially run on diesel to warm-up before switching to WGO and PO, this was mainly due to poor cold start performance characteristics of both fuels. At 100% load, brake thermal efficiency (BTE) for WGO is reduced by 4% compared to diesel and improved by 7% with FIF. In contrast, BTE for PO is 4% higher compared to diesel, however, FIF has minimal effect on BTE when running on PO. Although, smoke, HC and CO emissions were higher for WGO compared to diesel, they were lower with FIF due to improved combustion. These emissions were consistently lower for PO due to superior combustion performance, mainly attributed to low viscosity of the fuel. However, NO emission for PO (1610 ppm) is higher compared to diesel (1580 ppm) at 100% load and reduced with FIF (1415 ppm). NO emission is reduced by approximately 12% for PO+FIF compared to PO. The results suggest that FIF has the potential to improve the combustion performance and reduce NO emission of high viscosity and low viscosity biofuels, respectively.

Publication Information

Output type

Research Output:
Contribution to journal
Article
 Peer-review

Original language

English

Pages from-to (Number of pages)

Pages 116-124

Journal (Volume, Issue Number)

Fuel Processing Technology (Volume 186)

Publication milestones

  • Published - 11/01/2019

Publication status

Published - 11/01/2019

ISSN

0378-3820

Publication IDs

  • handle.net: 10547/623195
  • Scopus: 85059664348

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