An experimental study of emission characteristics from cylindrical furnace: Effects of using diesel-ethanol-biodiesel blends and air swirl

In this research, experimental investigation was undertaken to find the effects of air swirling on pollutant emissions in a cylindrical combustion chamber fuelled with diesel-biodiesel-ethanol blends. At the first, a burner system with various radial air swirl generator (the vane angles were 15°, 25°, 35°, 45°, 60° and 90°) attached to the combustion chamber of 400 mm inside diameter and 2000 mm length. Fuel blends were D100, D85B10E5 (85% diesel, 10% biodiesel and 5% Ethanol on a volume basis), D80B10E10, D75B20E5, and D70B25E5. CO, HC, CO2 and NOx as the emission characteristics were determined in this research. Moreover gas temperature in a cylindrical combustion chamber was reported. According to the results, the minimum CO and HC emissions belong to fuel blend D70B25E5 and air swirl generator with the vane angles of 15° and the maximum CO and HC emission occurs for net diesel (D100) and swirl air vane angle of 90°. Moreover, D80B10E10 has the maximum CO2 emission. It shows that ethanol can more effective to increase in CO2 values than that of biodiesel. Besides, the minimum CO2 emission obtained for fuel blend D100. The minimum value of NOx emission occurs for D100 and swirl air vane angle of 45°. In addition, air swirling condition with higher vane angles of 45° leads to higher premixed combustion and temperature and causes an increase in NOx emission. Moreover, the maximum value of NOx emission will be for D70B25E5 because of higher biodiesel content as an oxygenated fuel. The results indicated that the mean temperature of combustion gas increases when biodiesel content of fuel mixture increases. On the other hand, the mean temperature of combustion gas decreases by the addition of ethanol in fuel mixture.