Investigation on the performance and emission of a HCCI engine fuelled with seaweed hydrous methanol using several CAI techniques

Abstract

The alternative fuels and drivetrain technologies play a major role in the emission mitigation. The alcohols and bio-fuels derived from various feed stocks including seaweed (Sargassum Wightii) are considered to be the most preferred renewable alternative fuel in internal combustion engines and has the potential to reduce the dependency on petroleum fuels and tend to reduce related environmental impacts. The methanol is a simplest aliphatic alcohol, colorless liquid, completely miscible with water and organic solvents, and can be used as a fuel, since it has many desirable combustion and emission characteristics. Presently, Homogeneous Charge Compression Ignition (HCCI) is emerging as an efficient, effective and promising alternative combustion technology for CI mode of operation in combustion engines, with specific advantage of reducing both the emissions and the fuel consumption. The major challenges in the smooth and stable operation of the HCCI engines are the combustion phasing and control. The combustion phasing and control can be achieved through many techniques. The addition of diluents is one of the common techniques to meet the afore-mentioned challenges. Hence, hydrous methanol (methanol with 15% water content) is considered to be suitable for HCCI engine, since it has sufficient diluent (water content), which helps to control the combustion phasing. Hence, the HCCI engine provides stable operation. However, more water content in the hydrous methanol leads to a drastic reduction in the calorific value, which in turn affects the performance characteristics significantly. Hence, the hydrous methanol with 15% water content has been chosen as a fuel for the present study. newline newline newline