Reduction of Fossil Fuel Usage and Emissions of Diesel Engines by the Application of Quaternary Blends and Varied Fuel Injection Pressures.

The increasing energy demand has led to the exhaustion of mineral fuel resources and an environmental menace. Biodiesel and alcohol, as oxygenated fuels, offer promising potential for diesel engines. Moreover, the deviation in the fuel injection pressure (IP) favors improvement of the engine performance and reduction of flue gases. The contemporary research aims to explore sustainable biofuel that is an alternative to diesel and to achieve cleaner emissions with enhanced engine performance. The experiment involves testing of a diesel engine tank by quaternary blends comprising diesel, sunflower biodiesel, sunflower oil, and alcohol in the volumetric ratio of 50:25:5:20. The IP was varied from 300, 400, 500, to 600 bar at different engine loads of 10 and 20 N m at 1800 rpm of shaft speed. The quality of the quaternary blend was varied by the inclusion of alcohol having different carbon-chain lengths, namely, ethanol, propanol, butanol, heptanol, and decanol. The effect of alcohol inclusion and variation in the IP led to minimal brake-specific fuel consumption and maximal brake thermal efficiency for blended fuel containing 20% propanol, which was 17.39% lower and 8.70% higher than diesel, respectively. The same composition of the fuel blend offered the lowest smoke and CO2 emissions, which were 92.85 and 27.9% lesser than diesel; moreover, 7.36% lower NO x emission than diesel was achieved.

Attempt to mitigate marine engine emissions with improved performance by the investigation of alcohol inclusion in sunflower biodiesel-sunflower oil-diesel blend.

The quaternary blends (diesel-biodiesel-vegetable oil-alcohol) offer enormous potential for reducing fossil fuel usage and mitigating air pollution caused by marine diesel engines. Biodiesel and alcohol are alternate fuels possessing high oxygen content, ensuring clean combustion. Vegetable oil is beneficial in saving diesel contribution and increasing engine lubrication. The objective of the present work was to reduce the dependency on conventional diesel and to come up with cleaner fuel that can also improve engine performance. This experimental work aims to lower exhaust emissions by fueling a single-cylinder, four-stroke direct-injection diesel engine with novel quaternary blends comprising diesel (50%), sunflower biodiesel (25%), sunflower oil (5%), and alcohol (20%). In order to develop cleaner fuel than diesel, different quaternary blends were prepared by varying the length of the carbon chain of alcohols in the blends, namely, DBOEth20, DBOProp20, DBOBut20, DBOHep20, and DBODec20. The performance emissions of quaternary blends were tested at varied engine loads from 5 to 20 Nm (full load), while engine speed was fixed at 1800 rpm. The results indicate that DBOProp20 resulted in the lowest fuel consumption and highest thermal efficiency. DBOProp20 reduced CO2, NOx, and smoke emissions by 19.6%, 9.9%, and 85.7%, as compared to diesel. However, DBODec20 succeed in mitigating CO emission by 41.37% at 100% load. DBOBut20 proved to be most promising in reducing UHC emission by a maximum of 71.69% at 100% load. The highest BTE of 10.98% with lowest BSFC of 13.04% was recorded for DBOProp20 at 100% engine load, in comparison to pure diesel.

Chronic Urticaria and Its Impact on the Quality of Life of Nepalese Patients.

Chronic urticaria (CU) is a skin condition characterized by sudden and recurrent episodes of wheals, angioedema, or both and commonly associated with itching for a duration of more than six weeks. The available data indicate that urticaria markedly affects both objective functioning and subjective well-being of patients. A review of patients' records with chronic urticaria attending Civil Service Hospital from January 2018 to December 2019 was done. A detailed demographic data of all patients with chronic urticaria was also retrieved. Dermatology Life Quality Index questionnaire (DLQI) Nepalese version was used for the assessment of the impact of disease on life quality. Mann-Whitney U-test was applied to compare means, and principle component analysis for factor analysis was used. A total of 149 patients were included, with a male-to-female ratio of 1 : 1.9. The mean age of the study population was 32.86 ± 12.837 years. The mean DLQI score was 8.30 ± 6.73 with men having a significantly greater score than women (p < 0.02). DLQI scores negatively correlated with age (p < 0.01). There was a high internal consistency among items (Cronbach's alpha 0.89), and all items had satisfactory correlation with each other as well. Principle component extraction revealed that there were two underlying factors in the DLQI questionnaire on measuring quality of life in chronic urticaria. Males had a greater impairment in quality of life than females due to chronic urticaria. Most severe impairment was seen in symptoms/feelings subdomain. It also revealed that there were two different underlying factors in DLQI questionnaire.