Nanofuel: Next Generation Green Fuel for IC Engines
Saurabh Mathura, Amit Bharadwajb and S. Kanagarajc
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati, Guwahati 781 039, India.
as.mathur@iitg.ernet.in
bb.amit@iitg.ernet.in
ckanagaraj@iitg.ernet.in
ABSTRACT
Due to increasing need in the environmental friendly fuels, there is greater emphasis on improving the emission characteristics in an internal combustion (IC) engine, which leads to the introduction of nanofluids as fuels. The recent developments on nanofluids and their remarkable characterization insist their replacement over the conventional fuels. The objective of this work is to prepare the nanofluid as a fuel to improve the fuel efficiency and better emission control compared to that of base fuel. In this study, nanoparticles of Cerium oxide were homogeneously mixed with diesel in order to prepare nanofuel having the CeO2 concentration of 0.02wt.% and 0.08wt.%. The nanofuel was tested in an IC engine without changing the engine system where the combustion and emission characteristics were studied. The exhaust gases from the IC engine were analyzed using an exhaust gas flow analyzer. It was observed that there was about 35% increase in the break thermal efficiency, about 28% decrease in the specific fuel consumption and about 4% decrease in the concentration of NO and NOx when nanofuel was used in an IC engine. It is concluded that nanofuel has a better combustion and emission characteristics as compared to that of diesel and thus it may be a suitable fuel for the next generation IC engines.
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