Experimental investigation to reduce NOx and HC in a single cylinder CI engine exhaust fuelled with methyl ester of cottonseed oil

using antioxidant
G.Balaji Assistant Professor Department of Mechanical Engineering SRM University Tamil Nadu, India 603203 E-mail: ssmiet@sify.com SRM University Tamil Nadu, India 603203 E-mail: cheralathanm@gmail.com

Abstract Biodiesel offers cleaner combustion over conventional diesel fuel including reduced particulate matter, carbon monoxide and unburned hydrocarbon emissions. However, several studies point to slight increase in NO x emissions (about 13%) for biodiesel fuel compared with conventional diesel fuel. In this study, the effect of antioxidant additive (L-ascorbic acid) on NOx emissions in a methyl ester of cottonseed oil fuelled direct injection diesel engine has been investigated experimentally. The antioxidant additive is mixed in various proportions with methyl ester of cottonseed oil and was tested in computerized 4-stroke water-cooled single cylinder diesel engine of 3.5 kW rated power. Results show that the antioxidant additive is effective in controlling the emissions like NO x, HC, Smoke intensity and CO2 of cottonseed biodiesel fuelled diesel engines. Keywords Biodiesel. Cottonseed oil. L-ascorbic acid. Antioxidants. Fuel additives. Engine emissions

I. INTRODUCTION

iodiesel is one of the best substitutes to the fossil diesel fuel today in the world. Biodiesel production and demand has been growing fast and will continue to do so [1,2,3]. The main global warming pollutant carbon dioxide problem is not in biodiesel. Vegetable oil plants in nature itself absorbs carbon dioxide thereby compensates CO2 the emissions, which are emitted during its usage as biodiesel fuel. While growing the plants absorb the carbon dioxide. When burnt, biodiesel emits the same amount of CO2 as the plants absorb in growth and hence no greenhouse effect and global warming. Except NOx the emissions like unburned hydrocarbons, carbon monoxide, particulate matter, sulphates, polyciclic aromatic hydrocarbons, nitrated polyciclic aromatic hydrocarbons and ozone potential of speciated HC are less. For pure 100 % biodiesel, NOx increases by 13 % more than [9,4] petrodiesel. NOx is a major cause of smog, ground level ozone and also a cause of acid rain. As the use of biodiesel has increased tremendously, the rise in NOx emissions could become a signicant barrier to market expansion. The development of improved NOx reduction technologies is therefore of critical importance to the global environment [5].
Dr.M.Cheralathan Professor Department of Mechanical Engineering

NOx is generated during combustion by three mechanisms: thermal, prompt, and fuel. High combustion temperature (1700 K) breaks the strong triple bond of nitrogen molecules and form highly reactive atomic nitrogen, which reacts with oxygen and generates thermal NOx. According to prompt mechanism, formation of free radicals in the ame front of hydrocarbon ames leads to rapid production of NOx. The fuel NOx is formed by the reaction of nitrogen bound in the fuel with oxygen during combustion [11]. Thermal and prompt NOx are the dominant mechanisms in biodiesel-fuelled engines since; biodiesel does not contain fuelbound nitrogen. Thermal mechanism is largely unaffected by fuel chemistry, where as prompt mechanism is sensitive to free radical concentrations within the reaction zone. The free radicals formation during combustion determines the rate of reaction and prompt NOx production. Free radical is a highly reactive molecule with one or more unpaired electrons. Examples include oxygen molecule, nitric oxide, super oxide ion and hydroxyl radical. Antioxidant delays or inhibits oxidative processes by donating an electron or hydrogen atom to a radical derivative. Hydrocarbon pollution results when unburned or partially burned fuel is emitted from the engine as exhaust, and also when fuel evaporates directly into the atmosphere. Hydrocarbons include many toxic compounds that cause cancer and other adverse health effects. Hydrocarbons also react with nitrogen oxides in the presence of sunlight to form ozone. Hydrocarbons, which may take the form of gases, tiny particles, or droplets, come from a great variety of sources. In typical urban areas, a very significant fraction comes from automobiles. L-Ascorbic acid is a reducing agent which can reduces the functional groups present in the methyl ester of cottonseed oil. So the hydrocarbon emission is found to be lower with the increase of antioxidant fraction in the blends. In this study, methyl ester of cottonseed oil (MECSO) was used as a test fuel and L-ascorbic acid as antioxidant was selected as an additive. This paper, presents our investigation on the effect of antioxidant on emissions of a cottonseed derived biodiesel fuelled direct injection diesel engine. II. EXPERIMENT SETUP Experiments were carried out in a single cylinder, watercooled, naturally aspirated direct injection diesel engine of 3.5 kW rated power coupled with an eddy current dynamometer, Figure 1.

Figure 1 Layout of Engine and Data Acquisition System maintained at 0.083 kg/s and 29C respectively. Experiments The specications of the diesel engine are shown in Table 1. An were carried out after thorough inspection of the engine and eddy current dynamometer coupled to the engine was used as a calibration of measuring instruments. The same test procedure loading device. The fuel ow rate, speed, load, exhaust gas and practice were followed for all the test fuel mixtures. temperature and gas ow rate were displayed on a personal The emissions from the engines were studied at different computer. Exhaust emissions were measured with AVL DiGas antioxidant mixtures 0.010 %-m (LA100), 0.020 %-m 444 gas analyser. The technical specifications of the exhaust (LA200), 0.030 %-m (LA300), 0.040 %-m (LA400), with a gas analyzer are given in Table 2. mean engine speed of 1500 rpm. The effects of antioxidants addition on NOx, HC, CO2 and Table 1 Specifications of engine smoke emissions in a cottonseed methyl ester fuelled DI diesel engine at different loads have been studied in this investigation. Make & Model Kirloskar & TV1 Power 3.5 KW @ 1500 rpm III. TEST FUELS Type Multi Fuel Measured Measuring Resolution Speed 1500 rpm Quality Range Compression ratio 12:1 to 18:1 CO 010% vol 0.01 % vol Bore 87.5 mm CO2 020% vol 0.1 % vol Stroke 110 mm HC 020000 ppm vol < 2000:1 ppm vol, Injection Variation 0-25 Deg BTDC >2000: 10 ppm vol Capacity 661 cc O2 022% vol 0.01 % vol Method of loading Electrical load NO 05000 ppm vol 1 ppm vol Method of cooling Water Cotton (Gossypium hirsutumL.), belonging to the Malvaceae family is an important crop that yields the natural fiber used by Type of ignition Compression ignition the textile industry. It is one of the second best potential L-Ascorbic acid was accurately weighed using high precision sources for plant proteins after soybean and the ninth best oilelectronic weighing balance and added to measured quantity of cottonseed biodiesel. To make 0.010%-m of antioxidant Table 3 Comparisons of Diesel, CSO and MECSO mixture 100 mg of antioxidant was added to 1 kg of biodiesel. A 3000-rpm speed mixer was used to prepare a homogeneous producing crop. Cottonseedoil is extracted from the seeds of the cotton plant after the removal of cotton lint. Cottonseed oil mixture of antioxidant and fuel. The effects of antioxidant contains significant amounts of saturated fatty acids, palmitic additive on NOx, CO, CO2, HC and smoke emissions of acid (2226%) being the most common, stearic acid in smaller cottonseed methyl ester fuelled diesel engine were amounts (25%) as well as traces of myristic, arachidic and systematically investigated experimentally in this study. The behenic acids, lesser amounts of monounsaturated fatty acids, cooling water ow rate and temperature at the inlet was oleic acid (1520%) being the major species accompanied by traces of palmitoleic acid, diunsaturated linoleic acid (4958%) Table 2 Technical Specifications of exhaust gas analyzer being the most prominent fatty acid and only traces of linolenic Model: AVL DiGas 444 acid. Most of the physical and chemical properties of cottonseed oil resemble those of the major vegetable oils that also contain heterogeneous triglycerides [8,10].

1) Transesterification. Initially the cottonseed oil and methyl alcohol is mixed in 6:1 molar proportion and heated to about 55C and then this combination was mixed with 2% NaOH and maintained at 60C for 60 min. Then it is allowed to settle by gravity for 24 h Property Diesel Cottonsee MECS d Oil O Density (g/cm3) 0.8359 0.9711 0.882 Calorific value (kJ/kg) 44500 39800 40450 Kinematic viscosity 2-3 34.5 4.79 75 227 135 Flash point ( ) C Cetane number 51 50 53 [6]. Thus the methyl ester of cottonseed oil termed as biodiesel was produced. The esterified cottonseed oil contains a little amount of water, which was removed by heating the oil before using in the engine. The higher percentage of esters alkanes and absence of phosphorous and sulphur make this esterified cottonseed oil, the future candidate for alternative environment-friendly diesel fuel [7,11]. The measured properties of diesel fuel, cottonseed oil and methyl ester of cottonseed were given in Table 3. Table 4 Chemical structure and specifications IV. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION Chemical Structure L-Ascorbic acid

Chemical structure and specifications of L-ascorbic acid is given in Table 4. The performance parameters like brake thermal efficiency and brake specific fuel consumption, and emission parameters like HC, CO, CO2, NOx, and Smoke emissions are measured for diesel fuel, MECSO and MECSOL-Ascorbic acid mixtures. The emission results at various ratios of mixtures are compared experimentally.

Specifications CAS number Minimum assay Molecular Weight Melting Point Molecular formula Molar mass Appearance Density Melting point

50-81-7 99% 176.13 192C C6H8O6 176.12 g mol1 White or light yellow solid 1.65 g/cm3 190-192 C

The effect of antioxidant additives on NOx, HC, CO2, CO and smoke intensity with methyl ester of cottonseed oil were systematically investigated in this experimental study. The emission and performance measurements were taken repeatedly for 5 times with separate engine run. The analysis is done for the average of the readings. Further the error analysis is done for NOx reading at full load condition for pure biodiesel and at LA300 mixture. 1) Comparison of NOx emissions. Figure 2, shows the variation of NOx with brake power. The results show that NOx emission increases with the increase of engine load. Addition of antioxidant decreases NOx emission compared to pure biodiesel fuel. The NOx concentration

1 600 1 400 1 200 1 000 800 600 400 200 0

9.5
DIESEL M ECSO LA1 00 LA200 LA300 LA400

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8.5 7.5 6.5 5.5 4.5 3.5 2.5 0 0.875 1 .75 2.625 3.50 1 .5 0 0.875 1 .75 2.625 3.50

B rake P ower (KW)

Brake Pow (KW) er

Figure 2 Variation of NOx with Brake Power decreases with the increase of antioxidant fraction, up to LA300 mixture then it increases. It is found that LA300 reduces NOx emission by 9.31 % compared to pure biodiesel at full load. 2) Comparison of HC emissions. Figure 3, indicates the variation of hydrocarbon emission with brake power. L-Ascorbic acid is a reducing agent which can reduces the functional groups present in the methyl ester of cottonseed oil. So the hydrocarbon emission is found to be lower with the increase of antioxidant fraction in the blends. LA300 mixture reduces HC emission by 23.62 % at full load condition. In general also all antioxidant mixture reduces HC compared to pure biodiesel.
1 40 1 30 1 20 10 1 1 00 90 80 70 60 50 40 0 0.875 1 .75 2.625 3.50 B rake P ower (KW)
DIESEL M ECSO LA1 00 LA200 LA300 LA400

Figure 4 Variation of Carbon dioxide with Brake Power 4) Comparison of CO emissions. CO emissions are the products of incomplete combustion and primarily depend on the fuel air equivalence ratio. Figure 5, shows the variation of carbon monoxide with brake power. All CO emissions at full load conditions were slightly higher than diesel fuel. The addition of antioxidant slightly reduces CO emission then it increases.
0.7 0.6 0.5 0.4 0.3 0.2 0.1 0 0.875 1 .75 2.625 3.50 B rake P ower (KW)
DIESEL M ECSO LA1 00 LA200 LA300 LA400

Figure 5 Variation of Carbon monoxide with Brake Power 5) Comparison of smoke intensity. Figure 6, shows the variation of smoke intensity with brake power for diesel and biodiesel-antioxidant mixtures. Addition of antioxidant decreases the smoke at all load conditions. The LA200 mixture decreases smoke intensity by 8.21 % compared to pure diesel at full load conditions.

Figure 3 Variation of Hydrocarbon with Brake Power 3) Comparison of CO2 emissions. Figure 4, shows the variation of carbon dioxide emission with brake power. The results show that CO2 emission increases with the increase of engine load. The CO2 emission decreases by 2.38 % compared to pure biodiesel at full load conditions particularly for LA100 mixture then it increases with addition of antioxidant mixtures.

80 70 60 50 40 30 20 1 0 0

0.9
DIESEL M ECSO LA1 00 LA200 LA300 LA400

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0.8 0.7 0.6 0.5 0.4 0.3 0.2

0 0.875 1 .75 2.625 3.50

0.875

1 .75

2.625

3.50

Brake Pow (KW) er

B rake P ower (KW)

Figure 6 Variation of Smoke intensity with Brake Power 6) Comparison of brake thermal efficiency. Figure 7, shows the variation of thermal efficiency with brake power for biodiesel-antioxidant mixtures. The brake thermal efficiency for diesel fuel is also shown for reference. The brake thermal efficiency is lower for MECSO at all loads when compared with diesel fuel. The brake thermal efficiency for LA100 mixture is almost same to pure MECSO at all loads. For more antioxidant proportion in biodiesel decreases brake thermal efficiency.
30 25 20 1 5 1 0 5 0 0 0.875 1 .75 2.625 3.50 B rake P o wer (KW)
DIESEL M ECSO LA1 00 LA200 LA300 LA400

Figure 8 Variation of Brake Specific Fuel Consumption with Brake Power CONCLUSIONS The performance and emission characteristics of pure diesel, MECSO and MECSO-L-Ascorbic acid mixtures were analyzed and compared. Based on the experimental results, the following conclusions are drawn. 1. For LA300 mixture, NOx emissions reduce by 9.31 % compared to pure biodiesel at full load conditions. 2. For LA300 mixture, HC emissions reduce by 23.62 % compared to pure biodiesel at full load conditions. Based on the present experimental analysis, antioxidant (L-Ascorbic acid) addition with cottonseed biodiesel reduces NOx and HC significantly. ACKNOWLEDGMENT The authors would like to thank the management of SRM University for providing us the laboratory facilities to perform this study. REFERENCES Aninidita Karmakar, A., Subrata Karmakar, B. and Souti Mukherjee. Properties of various plants and animals feedstock for biodiesel production. Bioresource Technology, Vol. 101, 2010, pp. 7201 7210. Barnwal, B. K. and Sharma, M. P. Prospects of biodiesel production from vegetable oils in India. Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Vol. 9, 2005, pp. 363378. Demirbas, A. Importance of biodiesel as transportation fuel. Energy Policy, Vol. 35, 2007, pp. 46614670. Demirbas, A. Progress and recent trends in biodiesel fuels. Energy Conversion and Management, Vol 50, 2009, pp. 1434. Jinlin Xuea. , Tony E. Grift. and Alan C Hansena. Effect of biodiesel on engine performances and emissions. Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Vol. 15, 2011, pp. 10981116. Knothe, G. Biodiesel and renewable diesel: A comparison. Progress in Energy and Combustion Science, Vol. 36, 2010, pp. 364373.

[1]

[2]

Figure 7 Variation of Brake Thermal efficiency with Brake Power 7) Comparison of brake specific fuel consumption. Figure 8, shows the variation of brake specific fuel consumption with brake power for diesel fuel, biodiesel and biodiesel-antioxidant mixtures. It is observed that the brake specific fuel consumption for pure biodiesel is more than diesel fuel. The addition of anti oxidant mixture slightly reduces the brake specific fuel consumption and is almost same with the all biodiesel mixtures. [3] [4] [5]

[6]

[7] Kumar, A. and Sharma, S. Potential non-edible oil resources as biodiesel feedstock: An Indian perspective. Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Vol. 15, 2011, pp. 17911800. [8] Nurun Nabi, Md., Mustafizur Rahman, Md. and Shamim Akhter, Md. Biodiesel from cotton seed oil and its effect on engine performance and exhaust emissions. Applied Thermal Engineering, 29, 2009, pp. 22652270. [9] Soo-Young, No. Inedible vegetable oils and their derivatives for alternative diesel fuels in CI engines: A review. Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Vol. 15, 2011, pp.131149. [10] Umer Rashid, Farooq Anwar, and Gerhard Knothe. Evaluation of biodiesel obtained from cottonseed oil. Fuel Processing Technology, 90, 2009, pp. 11571163. [11] Varatharajan, K., Cheralathan, M. and Velraj, R. Mitigation of NOx emissions from a jatropha biodiesel fuelled DI diesel engine using antioxidant additives. Fuel, Vol, 90, 2011, pp. 2721-2725.