Fuel 180 (2016) 90–96

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Fuel
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/fuel

Full Length Article

An investigation on the effects of using DEE additive in a DI diesel engine

fuelled with waste plastic oil
Viswanath K. Kaimal ⇑, P. Vijayabalan
Department of Mechanical Sciences, Hindustan University, Chennai, India

h i g h l i g h t s

Analysis of DEE addition in a diesel engine fuelled with plastic oil.

Comparison of Plastic Oil-DEE blends against diesel fuel.

PD15 gave better performance characteristics than other blends.

NOx, Smoke and CO decreases and UHC increases with blend ratio.

Ignition delay increased with addition of DEE.

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: An experimental investigation was performed to assess the effects using diethyl ether additive in a diesel
Received 17 August 2015 engine fuelled with waste plastic oil. The variations in the performance, combustion and emission char-
Received in revised form 24 February 2016 acteristics of the engine using plastic oil and its 5%, 10% and 15% blends with DEE were examined and
Accepted 6 April 2016
compared with reference fuel. The experimental results show that the brake thermal efficiency increases
with increasing percentage of DEE in the blends and also BSEC reduced considerably while using blended
fuels. The combustion was delayed for DEE blends when compared to neat plastic oil and diesel. A drastic
Keywords:
reduction in the levels of smoke and NOX was noted for blends at maximum brake power. There was an
Waste plastic oil
Diethyl ether
improvement in the CO emissions while operating with PO-DEE blends, however the UHC emissions were
Combustion slightly higher. PD15 showed better performance and combustion characteristics with cleaner emissions.
Emission Ó 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Diesel engine

1. Introduction The demand for plastic is increasing day by day because of its
highly desirable qualities and easy handling.
Fossil fuels play a vital role in the expansion of industrial, trans- Despite these advantages, the plastic waste generated is creat-
portation and agricultural sectors. Because of the high demand for ing so many environmental complications. The huge demand for
energy, the petroleum resources are depleting rapidly. Further- plastic has created a large amount of waste plastic and it has
more the environmental issues due to the emissions from the become a common material in all landfills. It creates so many prob-
use of fossil fuels are increasing at an alarming rate. In this context, lems in disposing because of their non-degradable nature [5,6].
the notion of alternative energy has gained its significance and a lot According to a survey carried out in India in 2012 indicates approx-
of researches are going on around the globe, in the field of biodiesel imately 5.6 million tonnes of plastic waste is generated every year.
and bioenergy, for finding an alternative for the petroleum fuels Out of this 60% is recycled that means 6500 tonnes of plastic waste
[1–4]. Among the different fuels available, plastic oil produced by is going as landfills per day. For decreasing the harmful effects of
pyrolysis process has become the centre of attention because of plastic waste most of the countries implement recycling and incin-
its availability and environmental effects. Plastics have become eration [7–9]. Of all the techniques used for recycling the waste
an unavoidable material both in industrial and household sectors. plastic pyrolysis (chemical recycling) has considered as the best
way since it recovers the energy content in usable liquid or gaseous
form [10]. Pyrolysis technique is used as an energy recovery
method and gives liquid fuel as major product similar to that of
⇑ Corresponding author at: Hindustan University, Chennai 603103, India. petroleum fuels [11,12]. Recent studies suggest that plastic
E-mail addresses: [email protected] (V.K. Kaimal), pvijayabalan. oil can directly be used in diesel engines without any major
[email protected] (P. Vijayabalan).

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.fuel.2016.04.030
0016-2361/Ó 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
 V.K. Kaimal, P. Vijayabalan / Fuel 180 (2016) 90–96 91

Nomenclature

PO 100% plastic oil HRR Heat Release Rate

DEE diethyl ether NOX oxides of nitrogen
HDPE high density polyethylene UHC Unburned Hydrocarbons
PD5 5% DEE blended with plastic oil CO carbon monoxide
PD10 10% DEE blended with plastic oil SOC start of combustion
PD15 15% DEE blended with plastic oil
BSEC brake specific energy consumption

modifications. The literatures also suggest that the amount of UHC, 2.2. Combustion analysis
CO and NOX were higher than diesel fuel [13–15].
The major concern related to plastic oil is the higher density and The nature of combustion of a fuel in a diesel engine is one of
viscosity when compared to diesel. In order to reduce these down- the most important aspect which is to be analysed, as it directly
sides small quantities of oxygenated additives are used as combus- indicates the performance and affects the resilience and stability
tion enhancers [16–19]. Different types of oxygenated additives of the engine. The essential parameters used to study the nature
such as Dimethyl ether (DME), ethanol, and n-butanol has been of combustion are in-cylinder pressure, heat release rate and igni-
investigated in the past [20–22] but Diethyl ether (DEE) is consid- tion delay [15]. The cylinder pressure–crank angle data of the
ered as a better additive because of its superlative qualities than engine was obtained directly and the remaining parameters were
the others. DEE is a renewable oxygenated additive obtained from determined from it. The first law of thermodynamics was used to
ethanol [23]. It has high cetane number and oxygen content which calculate the net heat release rate with Eq. (1) mentioned by Hey-
aids the combustion rate in diesel engines [24,25]. It also has better wood [42].
energy density, wide flammability range and low auto ignition
temperature than other additives [26]. A lot of researchers have dQ =dh ¼ ðc=c  1ÞpðdV=dhÞ þ ð1=c  1ÞVðdp=dhÞ ð1Þ
tried adding DEE to diesel and biodiesel for improving the perfor-
mance and emission. Studies suggest that adding diethyl ether to where dQ=dh is the rate of heat release, J/°CA is the cylinder pres-
biodiesel enhances brake thermal efficiency and results in better- sure in Pa, c is the specific heat ratio, V is combustion chamber vol-
ment of specific fuel consumption [27–29]. Current researches ume in m3, h is crank angle in degrees.
show that adding DEE is an appropriate method for reducing the
emissions drastically, especially NOX and smoke [30–33]. There- 2.3. Experimental setup
fore, in this investigation, the authors have tried to study the effect
of adding DEE in a diesel engine fuelled with plastic pyrolysis oil at The experimental investigation was conducted on a high speed
different loading conditions. Along with performance and emission single cylinder direct injection diesel engine generating 3.7 kW at
characteristics, an in-depth combustion analysis has also been 1500 rated RPM. The graphical representation of test setup is
included in the paper for a better understanding of the effects on shown in Fig. 1. Engine specifications are listed in Table 2.
engine operations. A rheostat was used to electrically load the engine. No modifi-
cations or adjustments were done in the test setup. A KISTLER pres-
sure transducer was mounted on the cylinder head to obtain the
2. Materials and methods pressure crank angle data. The crank angle data were acquired
using a TDC encoder. The amplified signals from charge amplifier
2.1. Plastic oil synthesis were collected with the help of a high precision data acquisition
system. The weight averaged smoothing method was used to
In this investigation, the waste plastic materials (HDPE) were smooth out the curve and to eliminate any data loss during the
gathered from the city landfills and cut into small pieces (0.5– procedure. The mean of 100 (cylinder pressure–crank angle data)
1 cm2). The impurities in the plastic chips were removed by working cycles was used to avoid errors and inaccuracies in the
repeated washing and the moisture content is completely dried test results. Based on previous studies [34–36], the cyclic irregular-
with the help of an oven. A custom made pyrolysis reactor of ity and unstable operation of the engine were kept to minimum by
40 cm diameter and 60 cm height was used for carrying out the limiting the DEE percentage below 15%. The gaseous emissions
reaction. A 10% by weight of coal and 1% by weight of Silica catalyst (UHC, CO and NO) were measured using AVL DiGas 444 infrared
were fed into the reaction chamber along with the plastic chips. gas analyser and smoke density was measured with the help of
The reaction temperature inside the chamber was maintained in AVL 437C smoke metre. The specifications of the gas analyser
the range of 350–400 °C with the help of a temperature controller and the accuracies are given in Table 3. The analyser was calibrated
and the reaction was allowed to carry out for 4 h continuously at and smoke metre set to the null correction point before every read-
atmospheric pressure. Pyrolysis process yielded plastic oil (80% ing to reduce the errors. The engine tests were carried out by vary-
by weight of input), solid coke residue (15% by weight) and gas- ing the load from 0% to 100%. The brake power and brake mean
eous fractions (5% by weight) which is a mixture of propylene, effective pressure corresponding to each engine load are given in
iso-butane, ethane and small amounts of methane. All the gaseous Table 4. The rated RPM of 1500 was maintained at loading condi-
products from the process were either condensed to liquids and tions by adjusting the fuel flow rate. Five test fuels, diesel, PO (neat
non-condensable products are treated by passing it through the plastic oil), PD5 (5% DEE blended with plastic oil), PD10 (10% DEE
water chamber before it is let out. The oil was also distilled, to blended with plastic oil), PD15 (15% DEE blended with plastic
remove any of the remaining impurities, before using in the engine. oil) were used to perform the test on the engine. The fuel injector
The properties of diesel, plastic oil, DEE and PO-DEE blends are was dismantled and cleaned after every test run. The fuel tank was
given in Table 1. fully emptied by running the engine before using a new fuel.
92 V.K. Kaimal, P. Vijayabalan / Fuel 180 (2016) 90–96

Table 1
Properties of fuel.a

Properties ASTM test standard Diesel Plastic oil DEE PD5 PD10 PD15
Specific gravity ASTM D 1298 0.84 0.83 0.714 0.83 0.827 0.821
Kinematic viscosity (cSt) at 40 °C ASTM D 445 04e 2.15 2.64 0.22 2.52 2.4 2.37
Calorific value (kJ/kg) ASTM D 240 02 43,500 44,200 33,870 43,167 42,834 42,501
Cetane number ASTM D 613 05 54 50 125 – – –
Flash point (°C) ASTM D93 45 40 45 40 40 39
a
Values measured.

Fig. 1. Experimental setup.

Table 2 Table 4
Specifications of the engine. BP and BMEP values for each load step.

Type Single cylinder, 4 stroke, water cooled, naturally Load (%) Brake power (kW) Brake mean effective pressure (bar)
aspirated DI diesel engine
20 0.75 1.3
Bore (mm) 87.5 40 1.53 2.7
Stroke (mm) 110 60 2.29 3.8
Rated power at 1500 3.7 80 3.11 5.1
RPM (kW) 100 3.65 6.2
Compression ratio 16.5
Start of injection 23° before TDC
Number of Nozzle holes 3 holes of 0.28 mm (diameter)
and diameter
Injection pressure (bar) 200
Combustion chamber Hemispherical open chamber
shape

Table 3
Specifications of AVL DiGas 444 analyser.

Parameter Measuring principle/ Range Resolution/

measured technique accuracy
NOX Electrochemical 0– 1 ppm
5000 ppm
UHC NDIR 0– 2 ppm
20,000 ppm
CO NDIR 0–9.95 vol% 0.01 vol%

Fig. 2. Brake thermal efficiency Vs brake power.

3. Results and discussions

3.1. Brake thermal efficiency PO-DEE blends. At rated power, the maximum brake thermal effi-
ciency noted is 30.9% for diesel, whereas for plastic oil it is 27.5%. In
Fig. 2 shows the plot between brake thermal efficiency and the case of DEE blends the efficiency at full load are 27.9%, 29.4%
brake power of the engine while using diesel, neat plastic oil and and 30.03% for PD5, PD10 and PD15 respectively. The lower ther-
 V.K. Kaimal, P. Vijayabalan / Fuel 180 (2016) 90–96 93

mal efficiency of plastic oil is because of the high viscosity and poor
atomisation resulting in poor mixture formation during premixed
combustion phase. Also, more energy is required to break the
higher aromatic bonds in plastic oil, which causes the reduction
in thermal efficiency of the engine. Brake thermal efficiency
increases steadily with increase in the diethyl ether blend ratio.
The higher oxygen content, low viscosity, high cetane number
and high volatility of DEE aids the combustion rate and increases
the efficiency [37]. At higher loads, the temperature inside the
cylinder will be high which increases the rate of vaporisation of
fuel resulting in higher efficiency. The reason for lower brake ther-
mal efficiency for PO and DEE blends may be due to their higher
heat release during combustion causing higher heat losses [38].

3.2. In-cylinder pressure

Fig. 4. Cylinder pressure Vs crank angle.
For a diesel engine, the peak pressure depends mostly on the
premixed combustion rate and delay period of the fuel. Fig. 3 illus-
trates the peak cylinder pressure variations for all tested fuels. The
maximum peak pressure varies from 58 bar to 71 bar for plastic oil
and for diesel it increases from 56 bar to 67 bar. In the case of DEE
blends, the maximum peak pressure changes from 58 bar to 70 bar
for PD5, 57 bar to 69 bar for PD10 and 57 bar to 67 bar for PD15.
The peak pressure for all the test fuels increases with load, the rea-
son for this is at higher loads additional fuel is sprayed into the
cylinder causing a high rate of combustion. The cylinder pressure
variations with crank angle is given in Fig. 4. The higher peak pres-
sure for PO (5.9% more than diesel) is due to the high viscosity and
low volatility, which delays the fuel–air mixture preparation and
causes a sudden rise in cylinder pressure during premixed combus-
tion phase. The peak pressure of PO is higher at all loads because of
its higher ignition delay and higher calorific value [40] than the
other test fuels. It can be noted that the peak pressure reduces with
increase in the amount of DEE in the blends when compared to
neat plastic oil this is because of the low heating value DEE blends
compared to plastic oil. Also the high latent heat of vaporisation of
Fig. 5. Heat release rate Vs crank angle.
DEE reduces the in-cylinder temperature and increases the ignition
delay which is obvious from Fig. 4 as the start of combustion is
delayed. The delay increases with increase in the amount of DEE
128.57 J/°CA. The higher heat release for plastic compared to other
addition to plastic oil.
fuels is due to its higher calorific value and low atomisation during
premixed combustion. The negative region in the beginning of the
3.3. Heat Release Rate (HRR)
plot is because of the evaporation of injected fuel absorbing heat
from the combustion environment, which is followed by premixed
The net heat release rate at full load for diesel, PO and DEE
combustion, where most of the air fuel mixture undergoes rapid
blends are given in Fig. 5. The peak heat release for diesel is
burning releasing high amount of heat. It is evident from the plot
85.44 J/°CA, for plastic oil it is 147 J/°CA, whereas for PD5 it is
that the start of combustion is delayed for plastic oil when com-
141.48 J/°CA, for PD10 it is 135.03 J/°CA and for PD15 it is
pared to diesel and in the case of DEE blends it is even more
delayed. The higher delay period for plastic oil is due to the higher
viscosity which poses difficulty in preparing the fuel–air mixture
and the reason for the increment in ignition delay in the case of
DEE blends is because of the high latent heat of vaporisation of
DEE which reduces the temperature inside the cylinder. Some
researchers suggest that the increase in delay period is due to
the impeded dynamic injection timing [36] and some have
reported that the delay is caused by the interaction of DEE with
the aromatic chains in the fuel [43,44]. The high latent heat of
vaporisation reduces the gas temperature inside the cylinder
resulting in low heat release rate for the blends during premixed
combustion [16,24]. However, it can be noticed that during the
controlled combustion phase all the blends show higher heat
release than that of diesel, which indicates better atomisation
due to the presence of low viscous and highly volatile DEE
[19,39]. Also the high oxygen content and number of ignition cen-
tres created by DEE in combustion chamber increases the rate of
Fig. 3. Peak cylinder pressure Vs brake power. combustion [41].
94 V.K. Kaimal, P. Vijayabalan / Fuel 180 (2016) 90–96

known as Zeldovich mechanism [14,42,45]. The formation of NOX

depends on various factors such as in-cylinder temperature, oxy-
gen content and residence time [42]. Fig. 7 depicts the variation
of NOX emission against brake power for all fuels. The NOX emis-
sion for diesel at full load is 4.29 g/kW h and for plastic it is
6.18 g/kW h. This increment in the amount of NOX for neat plastic
oil is due to the high peak pressure and temperature which
increases the formation of NOX. Also the higher calorific value
and high delay period increases the peak temperature resulting
in higher NOx for PO compared to other test fuels. In the case of
blends the NOX emission is 4.95 g/kW h for PD5, 4.7 g/kW h for
PD10 and 4.01 g/kW h for PD15. As the percentage of DEE in the
blend increases the NOX emission reduces, as indicated in the plot.
A reduction of 20% is noted for PD5, for PD10 it is 22% and 29% for
PD15. Even though DEE is having high oxygen content the blends
showed reduced NOX emission. This is due to low auto ignition
Fig. 6. Smoke Vs brake power.
temperature of DEE, hence less temperature is required to start
the combustion. Also the high latent heat of vaporisation of DEE
3.4. Smoke emissions which reduces the temperature inside the cylinder during combus-
tion and this is evident from the low peak pressure and heat
Smoke is a measure of the amount of soot particles present in release during premixed combustion period [28].
the exhaust and this is the major component of particulate matter.
The variation of smoke emission with the brake power of the 3.6. Unburned hydrocarbons (UHC)
engine for all test fuels are illustrated in Fig. 6. The smoke emission
for diesel fuel varies from 0.5 BSU to 3.8 BSU whereas for plastic oil The formation of unburned hydrocarbons in the exhaust emis-
it varies from 1.02 BSU to 5.7 BSU. The increased smoke in the sion of a diesel engine is due to the trapping of fuel in the crevices
exhaust for plastic oil is due to the high aromatic content in plastic during combustion [25,39,42]. Some literatures [39,42] suggest
oil, low volatility and high viscosity which causes poor spray char- that quenching of reactions due to low temperature, incomplete
acterisation and mixture formation resulting in low combustion fuel evaporation and over lean mixture formation may also con-
efficiency. The smoke levels for DEE blends varies from 1.04 BSU tribute to hydrocarbon emissions. Fig. 8 illustrates the deviations
to 4.9 BSU for PD5, 1.3 BSU to 4.64 BSU for PD10 and 0.8 to 4 BSU in UHC emission with brake power. The UHC emission for diesel
for PD15. It can be observed from the plot that the smoke levels fuel at full load is 0.06 g/kW h and for PO it is 0.1 g/kW h, whereas
reduces drastically with increase in the amount of DEE in the for PD5 it is 0.13 g/kW h, for PD10 it is 0.14 g/kW h and for PD15 it
blends. Smoke levels at full load reduced by 9% for PD5, 14.2% for is 0.17 g/kW h. It can be observed that the UHC emission is higher
PD10 and 25% for PD15 when compared to neat plastic oil. This for DEE blends when compared to plastic oil and diesel. This incre-
reduction in smoke is the result of formation of lean air–fuel mix- ment in the amount of UHC is because of the reduction in density
ture inside the cylinder, due to the additional oxygen content pre- caused by the addition of DEE. Also the flame quenching due to
sent in DEE. The extra oxygen content in DEE aids the rate of high latent heat of vaporisation of DEE and the lean flame out
combustion during diffused combustion period, resulting in better region formed with the use of DEE [35].
thermal efficiency and reduced smoke emission.
3.7. Carbon monoxide (CO)

3.5. Oxides of nitrogen CO emissions in the exhaust of a diesel engine are generally
caused by the incomplete combustion of fuel due to lack of oxygen,
Oxides of nitrogen (NOX) are the important component in the it also depends on the physical and chemical properties of the
diesel engine emissions. Nitric oxide (NO) and nitrogen dioxide fuels. Fig. 9 indicates the deviation of CO emissions with the brake
(NO2) are the two compounds that are commonly put together as power of the engine. The concentration of CO for diesel at maxi-
NOX. It is formed by the oxidation of nitrogen present in the atmo- mum brake power is 0.74 g/kW h and 1.17 g/kW h for plastic oil.
spheric air inside the combustion chamber and the mechanism is

Fig. 7. NOx Vs brake power. Fig. 8. UHC Vs brake power.

 V.K. Kaimal, P. Vijayabalan / Fuel 180 (2016) 90–96 95

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