Reduction of Exhaust Emissions in a Kerosene Operated Genset for Electrical Energy Applications

<div class="htmlview paragraph">Environmental pollution from engine exhaust emissions has attracted worldwide attention. Besides vehicular pollution, the significance of engine exhaust emission from stationary utility engines, particularly genset for electrical energy applications, has also been realized. The emission norms for gensets in India have already been proposed. However, further scope of reduction of emissions needs to be explored for these class of engines as well as wide range of fuels like gasoline, diesel, kerosene, those running on LPG and CNG.</div> <div class="htmlview paragraph">A study has been carried out to understand and assess the level of emissions with various fuels and possible scope of improvements. The study was done on kerosene run portable genset for optimization of engine parameters like ignition timing, air-fuel ratio and compression ratio to reduce CO, HC and NOx emissions. The methodology of optimization has been developed based on efficient consumption of fuel without adversely affecting the genset performance parameters. A sensitivity analysis of engine design parameters has been attempted to demonstrate practical scope of improvements with minor changes/modifications in the existing engines.</div> <div class="htmlview paragraph">The optimizations of these parameters resulted in the significant reduction in exhaust emissions of CO and HC + NOx. The CO was reduced about 50% and HC + NOx by around 22% as compared to that of baseline engines. The reduction in emissions was accompanied with improvements in fuel efficiency. The genset performance was also found well within the acceptable limits. The paper includes the details of the methodology of the optimization and discussions on the results obtained. A comprehensive analysis of data of existing genset engines operating on wide range of fuels like kerosene is also presented.</div>