Experimental investigation on engine characteristics fueled with waste HDPE oil and study on NO x emission variation using thermal imager.

For heavy duty applications like power generation and transportation, the best option is the compression ignition engines, but the major concerns are the rising prices and environmental issues due to the rapid depleting sources of conventional fossil fuels. The present investigation is to study the performance and emission characteristics of a single cylinder four-stroke, air-cooled direct injection diesel engine runs with an alternate fuel as waste high density polyethylene plastic oil (HDPE) obtained by catalytic pyrolysis. At constant speed, test fuels have been experimented successfully to determine the engine performance such as brake thermal efficiency, brake specific energy consumption, and exhaust gas emissions such as carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, oxides of nitrogen, and unburned hydrocarbons. The result shows that the brake thermal efficiency is lower at all load conditions when compared to diesel fuel whereas the brake specific energy consumption decreases with increase in engine load and increases with increase in waste plastic oil blend ratio. CO emission increases and NOx emission level decreases with enhancement in engine load whereas the NOx emission and CO emission augments with increase in waste plastic oil blend percentage. But in case of NOx emission increase in concentration of waste plastic oil with diesel leads to raise in emission level. By using thermal imager, the link between in-cylinder temperature and NOx emission has been fixed. With the help of this course of action, it has been observed that in-cylinder temperature plays the major role in NOx concentration.