Issues of particulate matter emission from diesel engine and its control

Abstract

Particulate matter (PM) emitted from diesel engines encompasses soluble (volatile) and insoluble (non-volatile) matter. The concept of volatility or solubility depends on the method of separation. The volatile matter includes sulphates and nitrates which are bound to water vapour; and myriads of hydrocarbon species. The solid matter is comprised of black carbon and ash. Its mitigation combines the use of internal engine design and operating factors like fuel injection and spray, air and fuel mixing, chamber designs and fuel improvements. Control technologies that act on the exhaust gases are called ‘after-treatments' which include the use of oxidation catalysts, filter trap and reductant of nitrogen oxides along the exhaust system. The central issues of this thesis are measurement schemes that involve stripping the PM of volatile matter in order to determine the actual values of nano-size solid carbon particles that pose significant health risk and their mitigations. In the experimental measurements, exhaust gases were generated at low engine load which are rich in unburnt hydrocarbons that nucleate into particles at low temperatures. Similarly, exhaust gases generated at medium load contain volatile and soot components; these were used to study dilution effects on PM emission. The interplay of mixing and cooling was used to explain the behaviour of saturation characteristics of the volatile fractions in the dilution process which influenced nucleation of volatile species. The parameters of particle number concentration reduction factor (PCRF) and volatile removal efficiency (VRE) were used to give extended interpretation to dilution of PM during conditioning, than mere dilution ratios. On this basis, comparison was made on the effect of carrier gases on dilution process and it was found that air is superior when there is need for volatile reduction while nitrogen is better when it is necessary to freeze further reaction, especially at low dilution ratios. In addition, a two-stage hot dilution technique was used to mimic the Particle Measurement Programme (PMP) prescription, and it gave better PCRF and VRE values. The study of PM mitigation by filter traps focused on burning-off the accumulated matter to allow free flow of exhaust gases, and the energy it takes to initiate and maintain PM combustion. Therefore a fundamental study of soot oxidation relevant to regeneration of diesel particulate filter (DPF) was made. This was extended to investigate if blending of petrodiesel with biodiesel affects PM oxidation. It is deducible that oxidation of PM generated from fuel with biodiesel blends is slightly faster compared to that from pure petrodiesel. A feasible use of microwave power to regenerate catalysed and non-catalysed silicon carbide (SiC) diesel particulate filters (DPFs) using an available multimode microwave cavity was also carried out. Results show that with catalysed DPFs, catalyst light-off temperature reduced by 100oC under the influence of microwave irradiation, while for non-catalysed DPF, regeneration was achieved within 550-600oC at a time estimated to be lower compared to electrical resistance heating approach.