Emission Analysis of Heavy Duty Vehicles using Biodiesel Blends

  M.Sonachalam,  S.Santhosh Kumar,  S.Bensinghdhas

Biodiesel is a fuel-blending component produced from vegetable oils, animal fats, or waste grease by reaction with methanol or ethanol to produce methyl or ethyl esters. Many countries are using and considering the increased use of biodiesel blended fuels to slow their growth of fossil fuel use for transportation purposes. Before the use of these fuels increase, it is critical that we understand the effect of using biodiesel blends on vehicle emissions, so that we better understand what air quality impacts to expect. Many previous reviews of biodiesel effects on emissions have combined all of the emissions data available to find a single value for the effects of a biodiesel blend on pollutant emissions. This includes emissions data from heavy-duty (HD) diesel vehicles and engines, combining vehicle data from chassis dynamometer and on-road emissions testing, and combining data using different oil feed stocks for producing biodiesel fuels. In this review, the effects of switching from petroleum diesel fuel to biodiesel blended fuels on relative vehicle emissions for HD vehicles are determined separately. We will not include engine emissions data in this analysis. For HD vehicles, we will also separate results for on-road emissions testing from chassis dynamometer testing. For HD vehicles, hydrocarbon (HC) emissions were significantly lower for B20 and B100 fuels from dynamometer and for B20 fuels from on-road emissions testing. Nitrogen oxides (NOx) emissions for HD dynamometer data was significantly higher for both B20 and B100, but no significant difference was found for the HD on-road emissions data. For carbon monoxide (CO) emissions there was no significant effect for B20 and a significant decrease for B100 based on HD dynamometer data, and a significant decrease for B20 based on HD on-road emissions data.. No significant effect was found for carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions for HD vehicles using B20 fuels based on dynamometer or on-road emissions data. Particulate matter (PM) emissions were significantly lower for B20 fuel in HD vehicles for both types of emissions tests. The HD dynamometer data showed a significant decrease in fuel economy for the B20 blend. When the effects of a biodiesel blend on vehicle emissions in different categories were not significantly different, the results were combined to assess the effect of biodiesel use on the broader class of vehicles.

Keywords- Renewable fuels, Biodiesel, Vehicle emissions, Regulated air pollutants, Hazardous air pollutants

Unique Identification Number - IJEDR1602019
Page Number(s) - 129-133
Pubished in - Volume 4 | Issue 2 | April 2016
DOI (Digital Object Identifier) -   
Publisher - IJEDR (ISSN - 2321-9939)

  M.Sonachalam,  S.Santhosh Kumar,  S.Bensinghdhas,   "Emission Analysis of Heavy Duty Vehicles using Biodiesel Blends", International Journal of Engineering Development and Research (IJEDR), ISSN:2321-9939, Volume.4, Issue 2, pp.129-133, April 2016, Available at :http://www.ijedr.org/papers/IJEDR1602019.pdf