Lim, Pin Jie (2019) Investigation on the Droplet Combustion Behaviour of Palm Biodiesel-graphite Oxide Blends. Final Year Project, UTAR.
Abstract
The toxic emissions from diesel fuel are contributing to the environmental issues such as greenhouse effect and air pollution. Toxic emissions are nitrogen oxides (NOx), particulate matter (PM), carbon monoxide (CO), unburnt hydrocarbons (UHCs) and so on. Blended biodiesel can be an alternative fuel to solve the environmental issues as well as the depletion of fossil fuels. Graphite oxide (GO) is a nanomaterial additive that has high thermal properties that can improves the burning behaviours of pure palm biodiesel (B100). Parts per million (PPM) was used to determine the concentration of GO in B100. Test fuels in this investigation are B100, GO PPM 25, GO PPM 75 and GO PPM 100. This report investigated on the best concentration of GO to blend with B100 based on the droplet burning behaviour. This investigation was carried out with the single droplet combustion experiment. The suspended fuel droplet was ignited by the glow plug and the burning processes were captured. The images of burning fuels were processed by MATLAB to obtain the binary images and areas of the fuel droplets. The changes of droplet area and time taken for burning process were analysed to study the burning behaviour. From the results, GO PPM 75 was shown to have the optimum concentration of GO. It has the highest burn rate constant at 5.3652 mm2/s. GO PPM 75 has relatively higher amount of bubbling and micro-explosions during the burning process. When compared to B100, the burn rate constant was enhanced by 51.09 %, while the ignition delay and the combustion duration were decreased by 7.69% and 4% respectively. Results showed GO PPM 75 can effectively reduce the emissions and able to improve the fuel efficiency in diesel engine owing to its combustion that is more complete.
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