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To cite this article: Senthil Ramalingam, Silambarasan Rajendran & Pranesh Ganesan (2016):
Performance improvement and emission control in a direct injection diesel engine using nano
catalyst coated pistons, Biofuels, DOI: 10.1080/17597269.2016.1168020
Article views: 1
Download by: [University of California Santa Barbara] Date: 10 May 2016, At: 01:47
BIOFUELS, 2016
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17597269.2016.1168020
the piston, diamond-like carbon coating on the piston, zirconia coating on the piston, and piston; emission; oxides of
various ceramic coatings on the cylinder head and liner, have been used in diesel engines to nitrogen
improve the performance and reduction of various emissions. In this present investigation, an
attempt has been made to study the performance and emissions from a direct injection diesel
engine using nano catalyst nano coated pistons. The pistons were coated with copper and
cadmium nano catalyst at the top of the piston using plasma spraying techniques. Engine
performance and emission characteristics were compared with baseline engine. It was
observed that there was significant improvement in the performance and reduction of various
pollutants emitted from the diesel engine.
conductivity, low thermal expansion, light weight and and also gives a negative effect on power output. The
increased stiffness over conventional materials.[4] smoke densities were lower than that of the standard
As a thin thermal barrier coating for the engine, engine.[11]
Cr2O3 offers outstanding tribological properties. Fur- A LHR engine and conventional engine under the
ther it has been inferred that those thin thermal barrier same air fuel ratio, peak conditions and identical heat
coatings show improved volumetric efficiency, thermal release showed improved thermal efficiency, increased
efficiency, durability, reliability, emission and erosion/ availability in the exhaust and reduced in-cylinder heat
corrosion resistance of the engine.[5] rejection relative to conventionally cooled engines and
When a diesel engine combustion chamber wall reduced exhaust emission.[12]
was thermally insulated with a ceramic material of sin- Heat loss through the piston with the use of 2 mm
tered silicon nitride (SSN) and partially stabilized zirco- thick insulation coating on the cylinder wall reduces by
nia (PSZ), it showed improved performance and 6% and an increase in piston body temperature and
decreased volumetric efficiency though increased NOx further increase in temperature with increase in the
emission. It has also been reported that when the cylin- thickness of insulation coating.[13]
der head and cylinder liner were thermally insulated Nickel coating the piston proved to be an effective
with ceramic, brake specific fuel consumption (BSFC) and reliable technique to protect the piston from com-
reduced for both naturally aspirated and turbocharged bustion-knock erosion and also reduced piston
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engines. Further it was reported that hydrocarbon deposit, increased wear resistance, reduced cylinder
emissions reduced at low speed and sharply reduced head temperature, increased engine efficiency and
when injection timing was retarded by insulating the reduced knock sensitivity.[14]
piston head, cylinder liner and cylinder liner upper Fredrik Ahistorm et al. studied the catalytic combus-
part.[6] tion of diesel soot under the influence of metal oxides
It was found that the brake specific fuel consump- and different metals. They placed the mixture of soot
tion increased and reduced the HC, CO2 emissions by and catalyst in a reactor and determined the combus-
using sardine fish oil biodiesel in a diesel engine.[7] tion rate. They concluded that oxides of vanadium
The thermally insulated diesel engine showed equal were highly active at temperatures above 6230K,
or superior fuel consumption, higher NOx emission, whereas the coated material are silver, platinum,
and lower smoke and particulate emission. It was con- oxides of copper, chromium and manganese is active
cluded that the higher NOx emissions are partly due to at low combustion temperatures of diesel engine.[15]
higher combustion temperature and partly due to The insulated piston consisting of titanium alloy
shorter combustion duration. Lower HC emissions are 6242 and a slurry densified zirconia thermal barrier
due to a reduction in bulk quenching and wall quench- coating showed the heat transfer can be reduced by
ing of combustion reaction. It was concluded that the about 52%.[16]
reduction in smoke level and particulate was due to Zirconia and chrome oxide thermal barrier coatings
the high gas temperature.[8] on the cylinder head, valve face and piston crown of
The effect of design and operation variables on the an aluminum engine block showed improvement in
emission of pollutants from the combustion process fuel consumption of 10%.[17] The optimum perfor-
with particular reference to internal combustion mance was obtained by retarding the injection timing
engines is given and strategies for minimizing the for- with a ceramic coated engine [18] and higher NOx
mation of pollutants in combustion process were also emissions in the LHR engine was reduced by using a
discussed by Natarajan.[9] variation of injection timing.[19,20] Further, it was also
The ceramic coating on the combustion chamber of proved that the effective efficiency of an engine is
a single-cylinder direct injection diesel engine shows increased while using ceramic coated engine compo-
lower thermal efficiency with higher smoke, particulate nents.[21]
and carbon monoxide emissions when compared to The top surfaces of the piston and valves were
the baseline cooled engine. Further, the unburned coated with plasma spray coating method by using
hydrocarbon emissions were reduced at all load condi- 100 mm of NiCrAl as lining layer and over this layer the
tions. Low heat rejection (LHR) engine performance same surfaces were coated with 400 mm of the mixture
was attributed to degraded combustion with less pre- that consists of %88 ZrO2, %4 MgO and %8 Al2O3. Par-
mixed burning, lower heat release rates and longer tial increases were observed in power, exhaust mani-
combustion duration compared to the baseline cooled fold temperature and engine noise, while partial
engine.[10] decreases were seen in BSFC.[22]
The combustion chamber and piston surfaces were A piston crown was coated with Yttria Stabilized Zir-
coated in mnemonic material. The liner, cylinder head conia (YSZ) to understand the influence of the thermal
and valves were coated with partially stabilized zirconia, barrier coating (TBC) on performance and emission
and the coated engine shows lower volumetric characteristics in comparison with baseline engine
efficiency resulting from higher degrees of insulation characteristics. YSZ was chosen as the candidate
BIOFUELS 3
material for coating the piston crown because of its hydroxide (KOH), which chemically breaks the mole-
desirable physical properties such as high coefficient cule of the raw oil into methyl or ethyl esters with glyc-
of thermal expansion, low thermal conductivity, high erol as a by-product, which reduces the high viscosity
Poisson’s ratio, and stable phase structure at higher of the oils. This method also reduces the molecular
temperature conditions.[23] weight of the oil to one-third of its original value,
The engine was thermally insulated by coating some reduces the viscosity, and increase the volatility and
parts of it, such as piston, exhaust and intake valve sur- cetane number to levels comparable to diesel fuel.
faces, with zirconium oxide (ZrO2). The main purpose of Conversion does not greatly affect the gross heat of
the engine coating was to reduce heat rejection from combustion. Transesterification is the change of the
the walls of the combustion chamber and to increase trivalent glycerine molecules converted into monova-
thermal efficiency and thus to increase performance of lent molecules. Each is a monoester. In most vegetable
the engine using vegetable oil blends. Another aim of oils, fatty acids with 16 and 18 carbon atoms
the study was to improve the usability of pure vegeta- predominate.
ble oils in diesel engines without performing any fuel
treatments such as pyrolysis, emulsification and transes-
O O
terification. Pure inedible cottonseed oil and sunflower || ||
oil were blended with diesel fuel. Blends and diesel fuel CH2-O-C-R1 CH3-O- C-R1
Downloaded by [University of California Santa Barbara] at 01:48 10 May 2016
copper coated piston which is lower by 80 PPM from and nickel catalyst coated pistons. This may be due to
the value for the uncoated piston amounting to a the higher catalytic activity of copper in the combus-
reduction of 64%. Further it is also seen that nano cop- tion process and decreased quenching distance.
per coated catalyst piston shows lower value of hydro- The variation of smoke level with brake power of
carbon emission at all loads, from that of the uncoated the engine for different nano catalyst coated pistons
along with uncoated pistons is shown in Figure 3. The is an increase in NOx emission with respect to all loads
smoke levels remain the same up to 20% load for all for all pistons.
pistons. Beyond 20% load the smoke level increases It is also seen that at no load itself the NOx level
with load for all nano catalyst coated pistons and reduces for all catalyst coated pistons. For copper
uncoated pistons. The percentage reduction of smoke coated piston and uncoated piston for the NOx emis-
level for all pistons is very low. It was observed that at sion level was 45 PPM and 35 PPM and a reduction of
maximum load the smoke level for nano copper about 45.7% when compared to uncoated piston. At
coated piston is 3.0 BSU, which is lower than that of maximum load NOx emission for copper nano coated
the uncoated piston by 0.8 BSU. Thus among catalyst piston is lower by 62.5% than that of the uncoated pis-
coated pistons, copper nano catalyst coated piston ton due to higher catalytic activity in the presence of
effectively reduces the smoke level up to a maximum metal catalyst in the combustion chamber and also
of 21% when compared with uncoated piston at maxi- longer combustion duration.
mum load. This may be due to the presence of catalyst Figure 5 Shows the variation of brake thermal
in the combustion chamber and also higher tempera- efficiency with brake power of the engine for nano
ture after combustion. catalyst coated pistons along with uncoated pistons.
NOx is generally formed at a high temperature, due Brake thermal efficiency increases with load for all
to the higher oxygen content present in the biodiesel. catalyst coated pistons. It is also seen that for
The high amount of nitrogen present in the air is also a copper nano coated pistons the brake thermal effi-
reason for the increase in NOx emission. Figure 4 ciency is 36.2% at maximum load which is 7.2%
shows NOx emission with brake power of the engine higher than that of the uncoated piston. This is due
for different nano catalyst coated pistons along with to complete combustion in the presence of the
uncoated pistons. It is seen from the graph that there catalyst.
[21] Taymaz I, Cakir K, Mimaroglu A. Experimental study of performance and emission characteristics of a diesel
effective efficiency in a ceramic coated diesel engine. engine. Alexandria Engineering Journal December
Surf. Coat. Technol. 2005;200:1182 1185. 2014;53(4):787 794.
[22] Aydin S, Sayin C, Aydin H. Investigation of the usability [24] Aydin H. Combined effects of thermal barrier coating
of biodiesel obtained from residual frying oil in a diesel and blending with diesel fuel on usability of vegetable
engine with thermal barrier coating. Appl. Therm. Eng. oils in diesel engines. Appl. Therm. Eng. March 2013;51
2015;80:212 219. (1 2):623 629.
[23] Sivakumar G, Senthil Kumar S. Investigation on effect of
Yttria Stabilized Zirconia coated piston crown on
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