Study of Performance Characteristics and Noise of Dual Fuel Engine Run on Diesel and Producer Gas Produced from Cotton Stalk

Abstract

The current trend of energy consumption, in which fossil fuel is the main energy provider, has reached a level where other resources must be unearthed to ensure there is a constant supply for utilization. The rise in fuel prices recently has affected economic activity and only worsens the global energy scenario. Electricity generation is possible in new applications like biomass gasification. Among the all possible gasifiers, fluidized bed gasifiers are very appropriate in much respect. As major occupation of people in Punjab is agriculture. So a major source of biomass comes from this field. For this experiments are performed by taking sample of biomass i.e cotton stalk. A 3.5 kW, single cylinder, modified dual fuel compression ignition engine was fired with blend of diesel and the producer gas derived from processed cotton stalks at a constant speed of 1500±5 RPM. The investigation was carried out at a constant compression ratio of 18. The modified dual fuel compression ignition engine showed a smooth working at all load values in dual fuel as well as pilot fuel mode. In the investigation, it was observed that on dual fuel mode, a maximum of 45% of diesel was replaced by the producer gas and subsequently the cost of operation also decreases, with a slight reduction in the net power output. Reduction in power output is compensated by the considerable decrement in cost of power generation process. The engine was also tested for noise investigation on both pilot fuel mode as well as dual fuel mode. The dual fuel mode operation shows a significant increase in the cylinder pressure in comparison to the pilot fuel mode operation. Due to this increase in the cylinder pressure, a slight increase of 3.4 dB in the noise characteristics of the dual fuel engine was observed. The maximum noise of 92.1 dB was observed at ~80% load. This noise was further suppressed to 91.7 dB at 100% load. Some of the research papers based on factors effecting producer gas production are also presented in report. From the experimental study it is clear that the cotton stalk stands out to be the better fuel option for power generation purpose. With a wide range of applications the gasifier arrangement has a great potential to reduce the gap between energy requirement and supply of energy.