Combustion, performances, and emissions characteristics of Hermetia illucens larvae oil in a direct injection compression ignition engine

ABSTRACT

Hermetia illucens larvae oil (HILO) is among biofuel feedstock from insects that has high potential to reduce dependency on petroleum resources. The present paper is motivated by the need to critically examine the effect of HILO mixed with diesel fuel (DF) on combustion, engine performance, and emission characteristics of a single cylinder direct injection (DI) compression ignition (CI) engine. The experiment was performed at a constant speed of 1500 rpm under various engine loads. The results revealed that the in-cylinder pressure, heat release rate (HRR), and the ignition delay (ID) were reduced by an average of 3.32%, 12.89%, and 4.36%, respectively. The brake specific fuel consumption (BSFC) and exhaust gas temperature (EGT) increased considerably at all engine loads. The brake thermal efficiency (BTE) was discovered to be lower by 11.47% compared to DF. The finding also shows that carbon monoxide (CO), carbon dioxide (CO₂), and unburned hydrocarbon (UHC) emissions increased with the addition of HILO. The nitrogen oxides (NO_x) emission reduced by 19.80% compared to DF at all the engine loads. Overall, this study concluded the potential of HILO in CI engine as a promising renewable and environmentally friendly resource for the better earth.

KEYWORDS:

• Engine performance
• exhaust emission
• biofuel
• insect oil
• combustion
• diesel engine

Highlights

• Alternative fuel from insect is produced from Hermetia illucens larvae oil (HILO).

• Complete combustion, performance, and emission analysis of HILO-diesel fuel blends.

• In-cylinder pressure reduced by 3.32% and HRR reduced by 12.89% at 0.45 MPa BMEP.

• BSFC and EGT were increased by 38.10% and 3.88% with HILO addition in fuel blends.

• HILO shows 113.34% increase of CO, while 19.80% NO_x reduction at all engine loads.

Acknowledgments

The authors sincerely thank the Ministry of Higher Education (Malaysia) for the financial support through the MyBrain15 programme and the Fundamental Research Grant Scheme (FRGS) RDU130134.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Ministry of Higher Education, Malaysia [(FRGS) RDU130134].