Studies on the performance and exhaust emission characteristics of a plastic oil fueled CRDI engine with variable compression ratio

Abstract

In the modern days, the entire world is experiencing the sudden rise in energy needs. Strict emission rules and exhaust of oil reserves have led the scientists around the world to look into different fuels for IC engines. On other context, plastic wastes are currently the biggest problem across the globe for their indispensable nature and the alarming increase in the use of plastic for industrial applications. In this context, plastic oil has been considered as an alternative to the fossil fuels, as the properties of the oil extracted from waste Polyethylene are at par with those of diesel. Literature review reveals the fact that automobile sector ranks highest in polluting the environment through the emission of CO, CO2, NOx and unburnt hydrocarbon. In the present work, an investigation has been carried out to convert the waste plastic into a combustible oil and use of this oil blended with diesel to run a 4- stroke, 3.5kW, single cylinder, CRDI engine. Plastic oil has been prepared by pyrolysis process and subjected to fractional distillation. A blend consisting of 10% of this oil and 90% of diesel has been used as the fuel to run the engine at three different compression ratios. The performance and emission characteristics of the engine have been analyzed and reported. The results reveal a marginal increase in BTE, CO2, NOx and decrease in BSFC, CO, HC and smoke emissions.