Study of Performance and Combustion Parameters of a dual fuel engine runs on Blends of Diesel and Producer Gas using Forest Residue (Pine Cone and Coconut shell)

Abstract

India's economy is mostly agricultural-based and India's forest cover covers approximately 24% of land area. Subsequently, tons and tons of biomass in the form of wastage are generated every year in the nation.In the global arena, the three key fossil fuels, namely oil, coal, and natural gas, presently supply nearly 81.4% of the primary energy requirements in the world. The next largest share, i.e., approximately 9.7%, comes from biomass (mostly ethanol and biodiesel) and waste. Installed power generation capacity in India is 456747 MW as on Dec 2024. Total power generated capacity through Renewable energy is 46.3% of the total capacity out of which Approximately 32% of India's total primary energy demand comes from biomass. Biomass is produced in different forms like agriculture residue, forest residue, sewage sludge, herb residue, landfill gas and biogas, and alcohol fuels .Biomass gasification is a prevalent utilized thermochemical procedure for the transformation of biomass to useful products which are more useful and have more usesthan the raw material. Gasification transforms biomass feedstocks into burnable gas (producer gas), which may be utilized in order to generate mechanical and electrical energy, synthetic fuel, and chemicals. Growing fears of depleting energy resources and adverse environmental conditions have driven the world towards more green energy production methods. Faced with these new challenges, renewable energy sources have become the number one priority industry. Amongst these, biomass too has been foremost in the list of promising energy providers, providing a natural, green, and abundant source of fuel for replacement of traditional fossil fuels. The work in this research is centered on the production of syngas through gasification of dry coconut shells and pine cones in a downdraft gasifier and experimentation with thissyngas in a variable compression ratio dual-fuel engine. Key parameters like gas composition, major fuel parameters (proximate analysis), elemental chemical content (ultimate analysis), and energy content (calorific value) were measured to determine the quality of dried coconut shells and pine cones as a fuel. Engine performance and other performance characteristics were also tested to see how well the syngas derived from these biomass samples can be utilized. The research shows that the syngas from dried coconut shells and pine cones can improve engine performance. This places it in a good position to be used as a substitute fuel in dual-fuel systems.