Effect of biodiesel, biodiesel binary blends, hydrogenated biodiesel and injection parameters on NOx and soot emissions in a turbocharged diesel engine

• Published in: Fuel (Guildford) 2019-03, Vol.240, p.101-118
• Main Authors: Rajkumar, Sundararajan, Thangaraja, Jeyaseelan
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Biodegradability; Biodegradation; Biodiesel; Biodiesel fuels; Biofuels; Combustion; Diesel; Diesel engines; Emission; Emission analysis; Fuels; Hydrogenation; Ignition delay; Injection; Internal combustion engines; Mathematical models; Mixtures; Multi-zone model; Nitrogen oxides; Oxides; Parameters; Soot; Sulfur; Superchargers; Sustainability
• ISSN: 0016-2361; 1873-7153
• DOI: 10.1016/j.fuel.2018.11.141

•Combustion and emission characteristics of biodiesel and biodiesel binary blends are evaluated with experiments and modeling.•Altered the composition of karanja by blending with coconut biodiesel and hydrogenation.•Maximum model prediction error is 7% and 18% for NO and soot emissions.•Hydrogenation along with similar injection timing of diesel significantly reduces the NO emission. Recent research works show that the biodiesel is one of the most promising renewable and sustainable fuels for diesel engines because it is biodegradable, oxygenated, sulphur free and renewable in nature. The major issue in using the biodiesel fuel is the increase in oxides of nitrogen emission compared to that of fossil diesel which is coined as Biodiesel-NOx penalty. Hence, it is attractive to focus on the parameters that mitigate the NOx emission for enhancing the usage of sustainable biodiesel fuels. Therefore, this paper presents comprehensive experimental investigation and multi-zone phenomenological model for analyzing the combustion and emission characteristics of biodiesel fuels. The test fuels include the baseline diesel, karanja, coconut biodiesel, binary blends of karanja, coconut and hydrogenated karanja samples. The model results are validated with the experimental results at a wide range of speed and load conditions. The model predictions are observed to be matching well with the measured data with a maximum prediction error of 7% and 18% for NO and soot emissions respectively. The parametric investigations in terms of experiments and validated model to study the effect of start of injection, fuel formulation and blends of biodiesel fuels on the emission characteristics of biodiesel fuels demonstrate that biodiesel-NOx penalty could be alleviated by restoring the start of injection of biodiesel fuel to that of diesel and through fuel formulation technique. While, the binary blends of karanja and coconut does not significantly alter the emission characteristics at lower speed, it shows a beneficial effect on NO emission at higher speeds.