Experimental Investigation of a Dual Fuel Diesel Engine Run on Scrubbed Biogas Using the Method of Adsorption

Abstract

Global warming and depletion of fossil fuels have compelled the researchers to study the sources of renewable energy. Biogas, one of the most promising alternative renewable biofuel, is produced from anaerobic digestion. It mainly consists of methane and carbon dioxide (CO2) with traces of water vapor, hydrogen sulfide (H2S), siloxanes, hydrocarbons, ammonia, oxygen, carbon monoxide and nitrogen. The presence of high concentration of CO2 in biogas lowers the energy content per unit mass/volume. This limits its utility to only low quality energy applications where as H2S is a highly toxic and corrosive gas. Therefore, it is extremely difficult to transport and store biogas. Thus, the need emerges for a unified approach for scrubbing, compression and subsequent storage of biogas for wider applications. The current work presents the scrubbing of biogas using the method of adsorption. The quality of the scrubbed biogas studied by gas chromatography is presented. The scrubbed biogas is then tested in a dual fuel diesel engine as a primary fuel to evaluate the performance and emission characteristics of the engine. The data obtained are compared with those of raw biogas run dual fuel diesel engine.