Nano-sulfated zirconia catalyzed biodiesel production from tannery waste sheep fat.

This study makes use of tannery waste to produce biodiesel using a nano-sulfated zirconia catalyst (ferric-manganese-doped sulfated zirconia). It was through a modified wetness impregnation method that the catalyst was prepared which was then characterized by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR). The catalytic property of the synthesized catalyst was determined by using it to produce biodiesel from tannery waste sheep fat. A study was carried out to find the effect of the different parameters affecting the process. Optimized conditions of 15:1 methanol to fat molar ratio and catalytic loading of 8 wt% at 65 °C with a stirring rate of 400 rpm for a reaction duration of 300 min gave a maximum yield of 98.7 wt%. The performance of the catalyst during recycling was analyzed by conducting reusability study. The reused catalyst gives a maximum yield above 90 wt% up to five cycles with a catalyst recovery of 88 wt%. ASTM D6751 standard was used to compare the analyzed fuel properties of the biodiesel.

Experimental assessment and multi-response optimization of diesel engine performance and emission characteristics fuelled with Aegle marmelos seed cake pyrolysis oil-diesel blends using Grey relational analysis coupled principal component analysis.

This research focuses on the detailed experimental assessment of compression ignition (CI) engine behavior fuelled with Aegle marmelos (AM) seed cake pyrolysis oil blends. The study on effects of engine performance and emission a characteristic was designed using L25 orthogonal array (OA). These multi-objectives were normalized through gray relational analysis (GRA). Likewise, the principal component analysis (PCA) was performed to assess the weighting values respective to every performance and emission characteristics. The variability induced by using the input process parameters was allocated using analysis of variance (ANOVA). Hence, GRA-coupled PCA were employed to determine the optimal combination of CI engine control factors. The greater combination of engine characteristics levels were selected with F5 and W5. The higher brake thermal efficiency (BTE) have been obtained for F20 fuel as 22.01% at peak engine load, which is 11.43% for diesel. At peak load condition, F20 fuel emits 14.99% lower HC and 18.52% lower CO as compared to diesel fuel. The improved engine performance and emission characters can be attained by setting the optimal engine parameter combination as F20 blend at full engine load condition. The validation experiments show an improved average engine performance of 67.36% and average lower emission of 64.99% with the composite desirability of 0.8458.

Characterization of pyrolysis bio-oil derived from intermediate pyrolysis of Aegle marmelos de-oiled cake: study on performance and emission characteristics of C.I. engine fueled with Aegle marmelos pyrolysis oil-blends.

The present research focuses on the analyzing the characteristics of bio-oil derived from intermediate pyrolysis of Aegle marmelos (AM) seed cake and its suitability for C.I. engine adaptation. Owing to the high volatile matter content of 73.69%, Aegle marmelos biomass was selected as the feedstock for this research. The intermediate pyrolysis was carried out at 600 °C in a 2-kg fixed bed type pyrolysis reactor at a heating rate of 10 °C/min and the obtained bio-oil was characterized by different analytical methods. As per American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) standards, physicochemical properties of the bio-oil were tested and it was observed that bio-oil is a highly viscous fluid with low calorific value. Analysis of bio-oil through FT-IR and GC-MS examination confirmed the presence of phenol, esters, alkyl, and oxygenated compounds. The performance and emission testing of direct injection diesel engine were conducted with various bio-oil blends and the results were compared with baseline diesel fuel. The experimental results showed that the addition of bio-oil decreased BTE (%) while increasing the BSEC (MJ/kW-h). At the same time, increasing the bio-oil ratio with diesel decreases dangerous emissions such as carbon monoxide and oxides of nitrogen emissions in the engine exhaust. According to engine test result, it was suggested that up to 20% of AM bio-oil (F20) can be employed as engine fuel for better engine operating characteristics.

Optimization in the performance and emission parameters of a DI diesel engine fuelled with pentanol added Calophyllum inophyllum/diesel blends using response surface methodology.

The primary objective of this work was to enhance the performance and emission of the computerized variable compression ratio (VCR) diesel engine fuelled with pentanol/Calophyllum inophyllum (CI)/diesel fuel blends. Based on the prerequisite for the current research, response surface methodology (RSM), an optimization technique, was adopted for the process parameters compression ratio (CR), load and fuel blends, and the optimized responses like brake thermal efficiency (BTE), brake specific fuel consumption (BSFC), oxides of nitrogen (NOx), carbon monoxide (CO), carbon dioxide (CO2), hydrocarbon (HC), and smoke were revealed with the help of Derringer's desirability approach. From the results, it is notified that pentanol-fuelled engine showed better performance and emissions at 17.5 CR, P20C20 (pentanol 20%+Calophyllum inophyllum 20%+diesel 60%) blend and 2.5 bmep (brake mean effective pressure) load conditions. The observed mathematical models and validation experiments show that the VCR diesel engine exhibits maximum efficiency and minimum emissions at the optimized input parameters.

Prediction and optimization of CI engine performance fuelled with Calophyllum inophyllum diesel blend using response surface methodology (RSM).

The transportation demand in India is increasing tremendously, which arouses the energy consumption by 4.1 to 6.1% increases each year from 2010 to 2050. In addition, the private vehicle ownership keeps on increasing almost 10% per year during the last decade and reaches 213 million tons of oil consumption in 2016. Thus, this makes India the third largest importer of crude oil in the world. Because of this problem, there is a need of promoting the alternative fuels (biodiesel) which are from different feedstocks for the transportation. This alternative fuel has better emission characteristics compared to neat diesel, hence the biodiesel can be used as direct alternative for diesel and it can also be blended with diesel to get better performance. However, the effect of compression ratio, injection timing, injection pressure, composition-blend ratio and air-fuel ratio, and the shape of the cylinder may affect the performance and emission characteristics of the diesel engine. This article deals with the effect of compression ratio in the performance of the engine while using Honne oil diesel blend and also to find out the optimum compression ratio. So the experimentations are conducted using Honne oil diesel blend-fueled CI engine at variable load conditions and at constant speed operations. In order to find out the optimum compression ratio, experiments are carried out on a single-cylinder, four-stroke variable compression ratio diesel engine, and it is found that 18:1 compression ratio gives better performance than the lower compression ratios. Engine performance tests were carried out at different compression ratio values. Using experimental data, regression model was developed and the values were predicted using response surface methodology. Then the predicted values were validated with the experimental results and a maximum error percentage of 6.057 with an average percentage of error as 3.57 were obtained. The optimum numeric factors for different responses were also selected using RSM.

Studies on the effects of storage stability of bio-oil obtained from pyrolysis of Calophyllum inophyllum deoiled seed cake on the performance and emission characteristics of a direct-injection diesel engine.

The highly unbalanced nature of bio-oil composition poses a serious threat in terms of storage and utilization of bio-oil as a viable fuel in engines. So it becomes inevitable to study the variations in physicochemical properties of the bio-oil during storage to value its chemical instability, for designing stabilization methodologies. The present study aims to investigate the effects of storage stability of bio-oil extracted from pyrolyzing Calophyllum inophyllum (CI) deoiled seed cake on the engine operating characteristics. The bio-oil is produced in a fixed bed reactor at 500 °C under the constant heating rate of 30 °C/min. All the stability analysis methods involve an accelerated aging procedure based on standards established by ASTM (D5304 and E2009) and European standard (EN 14112). Gas chromatography-mass spectrometry was employed to analytically characterize the unaged and aged bio-oil samples. The results clearly depict that stabilizing Calophyllum inophyllum bio-oil with 10% (w/w) methanol improved its stability than that of the unstabilized sample thereby reducing the aging rate of bio-oil to 0.04 and 0.13 cst/h for thermal and oxidative aging respectively. Engine testing of the bio-oil sample revealed that aged bio-oil samples deteriorated engine performance and increased emission levels at the exhaust. The oxidatively aged sample showed the lowest BTE (24.41%), the highest BSEC (20.14 MJ/kWh), CO (1.51%), HC (132 ppm), NOx (1098 ppm) and smoke opacity (34.8%).

Assessment of n-pentanol/Calophyllum inophyllum/diesel blends on the performance, emission, and combustion characteristics of a constant-speed variable compression ratio direct injection diesel engine.

Alcohol is used as an additive for a long time with the petroleum-based fuels. In this study, the higher alcohol, n-pentanol, was used as an additive to Calophyllum inophyllum (CI) biodiesel/diesel blends at 10, 15, and 20% by volume. In all blends, the ratio of CI was maintained at 20% by volume. The engine characteristics of the pentanol fuel blends were compared with the diesel and CI20 (Calophyllum inophyllum 20% and diesel 80%) biodiesel blend. The nitrogen oxide (NO) emission of the pentanol fuel blends showed an increased value than CI20 and neat diesel fuel. The carbon dioxide (CO2) also increased with increase in pentanol addition with the fuel blends than CI20 fuel blend and diesel. The carbon monoxide (CO) and hydrocarbon (HC) emissions were decreased with increase in pentanol proportion in the blend than the CI20 fuel and diesel. The smoke emission was reduced and the combustion characteristics of the engine were also improved by using pentanol blended fuels. From this investigation, it is suggested that 20% pentanol addition with the biodiesel/diesel fuel is suitable for improved performance and combustion characteristics of a diesel engine without any engine modifications, whereas CO2 and NO emissions increased with addition of pentanol due to effective combustion.

Analytical characterization of products obtained from slow pyrolysis of Calophyllum inophyllum seed cake: study on performance and emission characteristics of direct injection diesel engine fuelled with bio-oil blends.

This paper aims to analyse the characteristics and properties of the fractions obtained from slow pyrolysis of non-edible seed cake of Calophyllum inophyllum (CI). The gas, bio-oil and biochar obtained from the pyrolysis carried out at 500 °C in a fixed bed batch type reactor at a heating rate of 30 °C/min were characterized by various analytical techniques. Owing to the high volatile content of CI biomass (72.61%), it was selected as the raw material in this present investigation. GC-MS and FT-IR analysis of bio-oil showed the presence of higher amount of oxygenated compounds, phenol derivatives, esters, acid and furans. The physicochemical properties of the bio-oil were tested as per ASTM norms which imply that bio-oil is a highly viscous liquid with lower heating value as compared to that of diesel fuel. The chemical composition of evolved gas was analysed by using GC testing which revealed the presence of combustible components. The FT-IR characterization of biochar showed the presence of aliphatic and aromatic hydrocarbons whereas the elevated amount of carbon in biochar indicates its potential to be used as solid fuel. The performance and emission characteristics of CI engine were assessed with different CI bio-oil blends and compared with baseline diesel fuel. The results showed that addition of bio-oil leads to decreased brake thermal efficiency and increased brake specific energy consumption. Meanwhile, increase in blend ratio reduces harmful pollutants such as oxides of nitrogen and smoke in the exhaust. From the engine testing, it is suggested to employ 20% of CI bio-oil blends in CI engine to obtain better operation.