Rakhi Mehta
Sarvajanik College of Engineering and Technology, India
Title: Nanofuels: Preparation, stabilization and combustion
Biography
Biography: Rakhi Mehta
Abstract
Nanofuels are suspensions of pure energetic nanomaterials in a liquid fuel that act as a potential energy carrier and release a large amount of heat when being oxidized. Energetic metallic additives offer high enthalpy of combustion, facilitating transportation of more payloads per unit fuel volume. Such mixtures have been reported to show advantages, such as increased energy density, high burn rates and enhanced energy release than the base fuel. But the physical stability of fuels containing nano size energetic additives is a major concern, hence special preparation techniques are required to produce nanofuels with high suspension stability and uniform nanoparticle distribution in continuous liquid phase. Current work discusses the formulation of nanofuels by stabilizing nano metallic particles in petrodiesel. Nanoparticles were stabilized by ultrasonication and addition of surfactant Span 80 (0.1wt %). Diesel fuel containing nano-energetic additives (n-Fe, n-Al and n-B) showed stability for 8, 18 and 24 hours respectively. Suspension stabilities of nanofuels were verified by spectrophotometer plots and backscattering profiles. Measured calorific values showed an increment of 12%, 7% and 2% respectively on combusting diesel doped with 1% of n-Al, n-Fe and n-B. Compression Ignition engine performance showed reduced specific fuel consumption, peak cylinder pressures and CO emissions however brake thermal efficiency and NOx increased. Size analysis of soot produced was carried out using Dynamic Light Scattering (DLS) which supported the visual inspection by SEM microphotographs.
