Performance study of compression ignition engine using biomass-derived producer gas from downdraft gasifier and diesel in dual fuel mode

Abstract

Energy is one of the key factors for the economic and social development of any country. Fossil fuel costs and stringent environment law has forced the people to grow interest in the alternative fuel, like biodiesel, alcohol, producer gas, biogas, CNG and LPG. Producer gas is one of the suitable substitutes for diesel in the compression ignition (CI) engine. The gasification technique is used to generate producer gas in which utilize partial combustion of carbonaceous solid fuel/biomass. In this study, downdraft gasifier system fed with the wood chips and cow dung was used to generate producer gas. The generated producer gas may have some impurity, such as tar, particulate and some other organic matters which may cause corrosion and erosion in the engine parts if directly use. Therefore, cleaning of the producer gas is very important. The cleaning of producer gas was performed by passing it through the scrubber, a pair of cyclone separator and finally a compound filter system having a block of rice husk, sawdust and cotton filter. The supply line of cleaned producer gas was connected to the air inlet manifold for dual fuel mode engine operation. The performance and emission characteristic of the double cylinder compression ignition engine was analyzed through dual fuel mode operation at different load conditions to achieve maximum diesel savings. It was observed that specific energy consumptions in the dual fuel mode of operation were higher at all load conditions. It was seen that producer gas from wood and cow dung, saves upto 60 % of diesel fuel in dual mode whereas the brake thermal efficiency in dual fuel mode operation was lower than that of pure diesel. It was also observed that NOx emission was very low in dual fuel which is a great advantage of dual fuel mode over diesel fuel. However, CO and HC emission were higher in comparison to pure diesel. © 2018 - Kalpana Corporation.