Performance and Emission Characteristics of Spark Ignition Engine Operating with Biogas at Graded Purity

Abstract

Experimental investigation of the performance and emission characteristics of Spark Ignition (SI) engine operating with biogas at various graded purity levels in order to ascertain their usefulness as fuel have been examined. A 4.125 kW 4-stroke air cooled SI engine was run with Raw Biogas (RB), Single-stage Water Scrubbed Biogas (SWSB) and Double-stage Water Scrubbed Biogas (DWSB); while Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) was used for baseline study.  The experiments were conducted on an engine test rig at 0, 50 and 100% loading. The Brake Power (BP), Brake Specific Fuel Consumption (BSFC), Brake Thermal Efficiency (BTE) and emissions (O2, SO2 and CO) were obtained using established procedures. When run on SI engine, the results of brake thermal efficiency indicate 20.87% and 22.78%, respectively for single staged and double staged water scrubbed biogas compared with raw biogas (20.57%) and liquefied petroleum gas (10.70%). Further, DWSB have the least BSFC of 461.63±18.17 g/kWh and have the minimum CO and SO2 emissions. It is revealed that operating a spark ignition engine with double stage water scrubbed biogas gave best performance and lower emissions when compared to liquefied petroleum gas, single stage water scrubbed biogas and raw biogas. Thus, it is suggested that highly purified biogas is suitable alternative fuel for spark ignition engines.
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