Technological and Higher Education Institute of Hong Kong

Faculty of Science and Technology

FYP 1
Reflective Journal 2

Investigation on effects of biodiesel blend on NOx emissions

from a light duty diesel vehicle

Tse Tsz Man

190523265

Date of Submission: 11/2022

Project Advisor: Dr. Wang Bei
1. Introduction
Petroleum-based fuels have been a significant role in the field of industrial growth over centuries.
However, the emission of burning fossil fuels could bring the earth into a critical situation in terms
of environmental and human health. Moreover, the global energy consumption could reach at
53% (S.M. Palash, 2013). The supply of petroleum-based fuel is limited, with the environmental
awareness have been raised in recent years. This resulted in a majority of discussion among
biodiesels. One of the main factors impacting general replacement of diesel by biodiesel is NOx
emissions.

The NOx emission is one of the most harmful parameters affecting the environment which cause
acid rains, respiratory disease. According to The United States Environmental Protection Agency
(EPA) estimation, there is an average 10% increase in NOx emissions for B100 biodiesel fuel
compared to conventional diesel fuel (S.M. Palash, 2013). The report from EPA points out that
the advancement of injection timing, less radiative heat transfer, increase in ignition delay, higher
degree of unsaturation, and high oxygen content etc, resulted in a higher NOx emission.

The majority of research on NOx emission with biodiesel investigate and analyse the combustion
and emission rate on different engine performance of biodiesel, however, just a few of research
examine on reduction of NOx emission. This part of reflective journal will have a discuss on
impact of NOx emission and reduction approaches on NOx.

2. Literature of review
To examine impacts of biodiesel combustion on NOx emission, S.M. Palash et al.(2013) and his
team has a comprehensive study on that. NOx formation mechanisms, Notable factors affecting
NOx emission of biodiesel fuel, and reduction approaches of NOx are reviewed and discussed.
The most common mechanisms for NOx formations in diesel combustion are thermal
mechanism, prompt mechanism, N2O pathway, fuel-bound nitrogen and NNH mechanism.
Among them thermal and prompt are the dominant mechanisms of NOx formation in biodiesel
combustion. In case the thermal mechanism, NOx formation occurs at around 1400 oC by thermal
mechanism, the rate of formation increases rapidly with temperature. Therefore, the mechanism
of thermal NOx formation is believed to be the predominant contributor of total NOx.
Factors affecting NOx emission are also studied by Palash et al. As possible causes for the
variation in NOx emissions due to the chemical structure of NOx and biodiesel. In terms of
physicochemical properties of biodiesel, it is found increasing viscosity in a low-temperature
environment, increasing in fuel mass injected due to injection timing and increasing in fuel
density would increase NOx emission. Furthermore, the paper found the adiabatic flame
temperature, a high oxygen content of biodiesel, molecular structure of biodiesel fuel, injection
timing, engine load condition etc. are correlated to affect the NOx emission.
The paper has also introduced reduction approaches of NOx emission. The techniques are
divided into two groups which are pre-combustion treatment and post-combustion treatment. Pre-
combustion treatment techniques reduce NOx emission by adapting different additives into fuel,
exhaust gas recirculation (EGR), water injection, water fuel emulsion and retardation of injection
timing. Besides, advanced after-treatment systems are adapted in modern engines with
biodiesel. There are some after-treatment approaches to reduce NOx emission such as adsorber
catalyst (NAC), selective catalytic reduction (SCR), selective non-catalytic reduction (SNCR) and
DeNOx (Lean NOx) catalysts.
There is also a report examined the effect of advanced biodiesel on NOx after-treatment devices
under the driving cycle. J.J.Hernandez et al. (2019) tested with a experiment set-up, a Nissan
Qashqai installed with a after-treatment system consist of a Diesel Oxidation Catalyst (DOC), a
Diesel Particle Filter (DPF) and Lean NOx Trap (LNT). Hydrotreated Vegetable Oil (HVO),
biodiesel derived from hydrogenation of waste oils, and Novel Biofuel (MoBio) combining fatty
acid methyl esters and glycerol formal esters, the latter from the residual glycerol produced in the
biodiesel industry, have been used. The report found that most of the NOx emission produce at a
high and extra high driving cycle, and the MoBio biodiesel has the worst efficiency even with
after-treatment device is adapted. However, the report has been a pioneer for further research
and shown the effect of different type of diesel.

Antioxidant additives are effective in controlling the NOx emission in diesel engine. S. Rajendran
(2019) investigate the effects of addition of antioxidant additives on operated diesel engine
by using Annona biodiesel blend (A20). The antioxidant additives used are p-
phenylenediamine (PPDA), A-tocopherol acetate (AT) and L-ascorbic acid (LA). S.
Rajendran prove with conducting single cylinder direct injection diesel engine which mounted
rigidly on the floor, one end of the engine was connected with eddy current dynamometer to
apply load. The A20 biodiesel is mixed separately kept in a small tank and supplied to the
engine. The temperature of different parts of the engine like intake, exhaust, coolant
temperature etc. were measured from the temperature sensors on the measuring board. The
smoke was measured using the smoke meter. The result shows the PPDA antioxidant
effectively decrease the NOx emission at all loads, while AT and LA antioxidant are also able
to minimize the NOx emission.

Selective Non-Catalytic Reduction (SNCR) and Selective Catalytic Reduction (SCR) are the
most common systems adapted to reduce NOx emission in large combustion operations. K.
Masera and A.K. Hossain (2021) introduced a new design combining the SNCR and SCR
systems for low power density diesel engines. The report introduces three exhaust after-
treatment geometries installed on the exhaust system, which are composed of two parts
injection and expansion pipe, and swirl chamber. A small water pump and cone injector are
used to develop injection mechanism. However, there is structural difference between three
designs for comparison of efficiency. the improvement of turbulence intensity as well as
residence time through expansion pipe and swirl chamber have been prove, resulted in the
reduction of exhaust emission of NO due to observation.
3. Findings
The second part reflective journal has focus on the factors affecting NOx formation and the
reduction approaches on the NOx emission from biodiesel-fuelled engine.

Other factors significantly affecting NOx emission is the cetane number of biodiesel and
combustion. NOx emissions increase with increasing fuel density while decreasing cetane
number. In modern diesel engine, fuel injection systems measure the fuel by volume. As a result,
the changes in the fuel density will greatly act upon mass of fuel injected and corresponding NOx
emission. the start of injection, the injection pressure, and the fuel spray characteristics are
affected by the fuel density, which influences combustion as well. Combustion with higher
quantity mass elevated the flame temperature as well as combustion which cause more NOx
formation. Moreover, S.M. Palash et al. indicate biodiesel is an oxygenated fuel and it contains
oxygen of about 11% by weight, therefore the high oxygen content resulted in higher heat
release due to a rapid breakage of hydrocarbon contributes to a hotter combustion process, the
heat release contributes to increase NOx emission.

High saturated fatty acid biodiesel produces less NOx emission than mineral diesel since the
contain of high cetane number. A higher cetane number of biodiesels tend to increase peak
pressure and temperature due to shortened ignition delay which leads to enhanced NOx
formation. Causes less NOx formation as it implies shorter ignition delay which reduces the
combustion temperature as well as residence time, consequently less NOx formation. The
experiment shown by J.J. Hernandez proved using Hydrotreated Vegetable Oil (HVO) produce
lower NOx emission due to a high cetane number reduced the premixed phase of combustion.

S.M. Palash et al. have also introduced NOx reduction techniques, Exhaust Gas Recirculation
(EGR) is one of a pre-treatment technique. The mechanism of EGR decreases the combustion
gas temperature by controlling oxygen density and combustion peak temperature. Thus, the
effect of lower amount of oxygen in the intake air and the reduction of the flame temperature
effectively reduce NOx formation rate. The report form S. Rajendran also propose the
effectiveness of EGR technique. By the experiment perform by J.J Hernandez, most of the NOx
emission is produce during high and extra high driving cycle as the EGR reduction allow high-in
cylinder oxygen concentration.

Antioxidant additives are also use to additives into biodiesel to lower the heating value to reduce
NOx emission. The study from S. Rajendran adapted three additives, p-phenylenediamine
(PPDA), A-tocopherol acetate (AT) and L-ascorbic acid (LA). In case of PPDA, the study
stated that 250mg of PPDA used is able to decrease NOx emission by 22% while AT act as
a chain breaking antioxidant. PPDA is able to reduce in formation of free radicals in the
biodiesel. The addition of antioxidant with biodiesel is able to reduce formation of hydroxyl
radicals (OH) during combustion process affect the formation of oxides of nitrogen. The adiabatic
flame temperature is suppressed by the presence of ethanol in the additive and free radical
slaking effect of carotenoid. Hence, the NOx emission is reduced significantly. Moreover,
properties, oxidation stability, availability, cost and rate of suppression of NOx emission, three of
the antioxidants are commonly used commercially.
4. Action Plan
5. Conclusion
6. Reference
[54] Nettles-Anderson S, Olsen D. Survey of straight vegetable oil composition impact on
combustion properties. SAE Technical Paper 2009:01–487.

[3] G. Balaji, M. Cheralathan, Experimental reduction of NO and HC emissions in a CI engine fuelled

with methyl ester of neem oil using p-phenylenediamine antioxidant, J. Sci. Ind. Res. 73 (3) (2014)
177e180