2010 Volume 52 Issue 159 Pages 49-59
This review paper, which is based on the survey about bio fuels in the committee of the Combustion Society of Japan (2005-2007) and in addition with our recent experimental researches, presents the potential of advanced technologies of bio fuel engines.
It is shown that the ethanol fueled chemical turbo engine (CTE) has good promise of performance and efficiency gains. The CTE essentially has two advantages over usual spark ignition engines. First advantage is recover of heat of exhaust gas as chemical energy of gas mixture can be produced by reforming of ethanol at comparatively low temperature, around 600K. With the advances in reformer technology, the use of higher fractions of hydrogen and other flammable species, could provide the second advantage of CTE i.e. Increase of the indicate work due to the higher mass burning rate.
We also experimentally evaluate a performance and exhaust emissions of diesel engine without any modifications operating on BDF (biodiesel fuel) reforming by ozone-rich air generated by corona discharge ozonizer. The combustion characteristics, exhaust emissions are compared with the case of BDF as baseline fuel. It is expected that the flammable ozonide is generated in double bond of fatty acid contained in BDF by fuel reforming. On the other hand, the ozone rich air is mixing into intake air of diesel engine as oxidizer, and exhaust emissions of engine fueled with BDF are studied.
