Development of novel alternative biodiesel fuels for reducing PM emissions and PM-related genotoxicity.

This paper intend to investigate the effects of biodiesel fuel blends comprising of waste-cooking oil and butanol-diesel (B10W10-B10W40) under steady-state conditions. Both particulate organic carbon (OC) and PM including PM2.5 and PM10 significantly decreased with the increasing percentage of biodiesel fuel blends. The fuel blend of B10W40 also demonstrated the most effective function in reducing the emissions of PM10 and PM2.5 in the volume by 59.4% and 57.7%, respectively. Moreover, the emissions of nitrogen oxides decreased with the blending of B10W10-B10W40 (13.9-28.5%), while the brake specific fuel consumption was substantially increased (5.69-13.4%). The overall biological toxicity of PM10 generated from the fuel tested in this study was determined according to Single Cell Gel Electrophoresis assay in human alveolar basal epithelial A549 cells and micronucleus assay in CHO-K1 cells. In addition, the volume of more than 20% waste-cooking oil (B10W20 and B10W40) significantly reduced diesel-induced genotoxicity in lung cells and micronucleus formation in CHO-K1 cells. Collectively, these results indicated that biodiesel fuel blends with the butanol could be a potential alternative fuels for diesel engines because of its substantial property with a significant reduction of the PM-related genotoxicity and the emissions of PM, particulate OC, and NOX.

Hydrogen production from banyan leaves using an atmospheric-pressure microwave plasma reactor.

Growth of the hydrogen market has motivated increased study of hydrogen production. Understanding how biomass is converted to hydrogen gas can help in evaluating opportunities for reducing the environmental impact of petroleum-based fuels. The microwave power used in the reaction is found to be proportional to the rate of production of hydrogen gas, mass of hydrogen gas produced per gram of banyan leaves consumed, and amount of hydrogen gas formed with respect to the H-atom content of banyan leaves decomposed. Increase the microwave power levels results in an increase of H2 and decrease of CO2 concentrations in the gaseous products. This finding may possibly be ascribed to the water-gas shift reaction. These results will help to expand our knowledge concerning banyan leaves and hydrogen yield on the basis of microwave-assisted pyrolysis, which will improve the design of hydrogen production technologies.