Analysis of Performance Characteristics of Waste Plastic Fuel Oil blend in a VCR CI Engine

Waste plastics are indispensable materials in the modern world and application in the industrial field is continually increasing. Conversion of waste plastic to fuel is one of the recent trends in minimizing not only the waste disposal but also could be used as an alternate fuel for internal combustion engines. The objectives of this work includes analyzing the properties of waste plastic fuel oil obtained by thermo-catalytic cracking of waste plastics to produce high grade liquid fuel for CI engine and compare its properties with diesel in order to understand which blend should be used in the engine. This work also includes analysis of various engine performance parameters using the obtained blended fuel at different loading conditions. The test on the obtained fuel oil is conducted at compression ratios 16 and 17. It is also conducted on diesel at compression ratio of 17 and the results were compared. It can be concluded from the results that waste plastic fuel with diesel fueled up to 5% by volume could replace the diesel fuel by operating the existing diesel engine without any modifications. There is a comparable increase in brake thermal efficiency, reduction in specific fuel consumption and a significant decrease in volumetric efficiency. The B5 blend also shows an increase in emissions of gases such as hydrocarbons, oxides of nitrogen and carbon monoxide. In addition to this smoke emitted by B5 blend is less than diesel. Furthermore the work can be improved by using better grade of catalyst for thermo-catalytic cracking, different classes of plastics and varying injection pressure and injection timing.