Predicting the combustion behaviour of compression ignition engine fuelled with biodiesel from Stoechospermum marginatum, a macro algae.

Biodiesel is one among the recent developments in the field of renewable energy research. To enhance the combustion characteristics of compression ignition engine, industry and academicians were working towards clean and renewable energy resource. Algal biodiesel was one of the major research arenas in the recent decade of renewable energy. Bio-oil from marine brown macro algae, Stoechospermum marginatum was used as the test fuel in this study. The purpose of this numerical study was to analyse the combustion behaviour of compression ignition engine when fuelled with Stoechospermum marginatum biodiesel as a fuel. The numerical study was performed using the zero-dimensional combustion model by incorporating the dynamic combustion duration during the heat transfer using the MATLAB Simulink software. The developed model which incorporated the instantaneous combustion duration was a novel approach. Validations of the numerical results on combustion features like in-cylinder pressure, rate of pressure rise, rate of heat release, and cumulative heat release were done by comparing it with the experimental data. The deviation between the numerical and experimental values was found to be within 5 to 6%.

Upcycling of Wastewater via Effective Photocatalytic Hydrogen Production Using MnO2 Nanoparticles-Decorated Activated Carbon Nanoflakes.

In the present work, we demonstrated the upcycling technique of effective wastewater treatment via photocatalytic hydrogen production by using the nanocomposites of manganese oxide-decorated activated carbon (MnO2-AC). The nanocomposites were sonochemically synthesized in pure water by utilizing MnO2 nanoparticles and AC nanoflakes that had been prepared through green routes using the extracts of Brassica oleracea and Azadirachta indica, respectively. MnO2-AC nanocomposites were confirmed to exist in the form of nanopebbles with a high specific surface area of ~109 m2/g. When using the MnO2-AC nanocomposites as a photocatalyst for the wastewater treatment, they exhibited highly efficient hydrogen production activity. Namely, the high hydrogen production rate (395 mL/h) was achieved when splitting the synthetic sulphide effluent (S2- = 0.2 M) via the photocatalytic reaction by using MnO2-AC. The results stand for the excellent energy-conversion capability of the MnO2-AC nanocomposites, particularly, for photocatalytic splitting of hydrogen from sulphide wastewater.