Study on the performance and emissions characteristics of reformulated engine blended with producer gas, biogas, and pongamia pinnata biodiesel

Abstract

This paper presents the performance and emission analysis of a compression ignition dual-fuel engine using various fuel blends made from Karanja biodiesel (BD), biogas (BG), and producer gas (PG). The study evaluates engine performance and emissions in both single-fuel and dual-fuel modes. The engine was run on diesel and biodiesel at various loads in single-fuel operation. In dual-fuel mode, the fuels used were BD-BG, BD-PG, and BD-BG-PG. The brake-specific energy consumption (BSEC) at a 6.0 kW load was 164.8 % and 87.0 % higher for the BD-BG-PG blend than diesel operation. BG and PG were consistently supplied at flow rates of 2.3 kg/h and 32.0 kg/h, respectively, throughout the experiment. The engine was initially tested at a 1.0 kW load, gradually increasing to the maximum output. The results show that operating in dual-fuel mode with the tested blends (biodiesel combined with BG, PG, or both) leads to lower emissions compared to diesel in both single-fuel (biodiesel or diesel alone). Specifically, dual-fuel operation yields lower smoke and NOx emissions under all load conditions, while other emission parameters, such as CO and HC, show higher values compared to single-fuel mode. © 2025 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/