Utilization of Poor Biogas as Fuel for Hybrid Biogas-Diesel Dual Fuel Stationary Engine

Abstract

In the present work an experimental investigation was conducted to examine the effect of combustion of biogas on the performance of hybrid biogas-diesel dual fuel engine converted from a diesel engine. With a retrofitted control system, the hybrid engine can operate either on diesel or on biogas with different CH4 concentrations. Effects of biogas composition, equivalence ratio, engine speed and pilot injection on engine performance were taken into consideration. The tests were carried out on the AVL engine test bed with APA204 dynamometer. The results show that peak of cylinder pressure and indicated engine cycle work decrease as decreasing CH4 concentration in biogas or/and as increasing engine speed. The maximum indicated engine cycle work was obtained with slightly rich mixture. With rich biogas, the hybrid biogas-diesel dual fuel engine ignited by pilot injection of 10% of rated injection can develop output power equivalent to rated power of diesel mode. But with raw biogas (CH4 concentration in biogas under 70%), power of dual fuel mode is lower than rated power of diesel mode thus an increase of pilot injection is needed to meet requirements of external load. In case of shortfall of biogas supply, the engine can be switched automatically to diesel operation. The new concept of hybrid biogas-diesel dual fuel engine is very useful in rural area. It can operate and save fossil fuel at any biogas supply conditions.

Keywords

• energy; renewable energy; green energy;energy saving

References

1. Ga, B.V.; Nam, T.V.; Tung, T.T.H.; et al. (2013): Biogas Engines. Vietnam Education Publishing House (in Vietnamese)
2. Huang, J.; Crookes, R. J. (1998): Assessment of simulated biogas as a fuel for the spark ignition engine. Fuel, 77, pp. 1793-1801
3. Midkiff, K. C.; Bell, S. R.; Rathnam, S.; Bhargava, S. (2001): Fuel composition effects on emissions from a spark-ignited engine operated on simulated biogases. Journal of Engineering for Gas Turbines and Power, 123, pp. 132-138
4. Jawurek, H. H.; Lane, N. W. and Rallis C. J. (1987): Biogas/Petrol Dual Fuelling of Sl Engine for Rural Third World Use. Biomass, 13, pp. 87-103
5. Von Mitzlaff (1988): Engines for Biogas, a publication of Deutsches Zentrum fur Entwicklungstecknologien, GATE, 132pp, ISBN 3528020326.
6. Henham, A.; Makkar, M. K. (1998): Combustion of simulated biogas in a dual-fuel diesel engine. Energy Conversion & Management, 39, pp. 2001-2009
7. Duc, P.M.; Wattanavichien, K. (2007): Study on biogas premixed charge diesel dual fuelled engine. Energy Conversion and Management, 48, pp. 2286-2308.
8. Tippayawong, N.; Promwungkwa, A.; Rerkkriangkrai, P. (2007): Long-term operation of a small biogas/diesel dual-fuel engine for on-farm electricity generation. Biosystems Engineering 98, pp. 26-32

9. Abd Alla, G.H.; Soliman, H.A.; Badr, O.A.; Abd Rabbo, M.F. (2000): Effect of pilot fuel quantity on the performance of a dual fuel engine. Energy Conversion and Management 41, pp. 559-572.
10. Abd Alla, G.H.; Soliman, H.A.; Badr, O.A.; Abd Rabbo, M.F. (2002): Effect of injection timing on the performance of a dual fuel engine. Energy Conversion and Management 43, pp. 269-277.
11. Carlucci, A.P.; de Risi, A.; Laforgia, D.; Naccarato, F. (2008): Experimental investigation and combustion analysis of a direct injection dual-fuel diesel-natural gas engine. Energy 33, pp. 256-263
12. Gunea, C.; Razavi, M.R.; Karim, G.A. (1998): The Effects of Pilot Fuel Quality on Dual Fuel Engine Ignition Delay. SAE Paper 982453.
13. R. Chandra, V.K.; Vijay, P.M.V.; Subbarao, T.K.; Khura (2011): Performance evaluation of a constant speed IC engine on CNG, methane enriched biogas and biogas. Applied Energy 88, pp. 3969-3977
14. Ga, B.V.; Nam, T.V. (2014): Mixer design for high performance SI engine converted from a diesel engine. International Journal of Engineering Research & Technology (IJERT, http://www.ijert.org), Vol. 3 Issue 1, January-2014, pp. 2743-2760,
15. Ga, B.V.; Nam, T.V. (2014): Appropriate structural parameters of biogas SI engine converted from diesel engine. IET Renew. Power Gener., pp. 1–7, volume 8 (2014) library.theiet.org/content/journals/iet-rpg http://digital
16. E. Porpatham, E.; Ramesh, A.; Nagalingam, B. (2007): Effect of hydrogen addition on the performance of a biogas fuelled spark ignition engine. International Journal of Hydrogen Energy 32 (2007) 2057 – 2065
17. Ga, B.V. (2013): Biogas Supply System for Hybrid Biogas-diesel Dual Fuel Engine. Patent No. 11868 on 07 October 2013. Vietnam Intellectual Property Office