Control of carbon dioxide emission in automobile vehicles using CO₂ scrubber

ABSTRACT

Global warming and noise pollution are rapidly rising as catastrophic crises of the hour. Therefore, many pieces of research of the recent times are focused on addressing a solution to these issues. In case of the former, the concern lays in reducing the carbon dioxide emission and in the latter, it lies in the management of the excessive noises in the environment. The scruffler (scrubber + muffler), is one such system which helps in overcoming these problems in automobiles. The internal structure of the system consists of a layer made up of lithium hydroxide [LiOH], calcium hydroxide [Ca(OH)₂] and silicon dioxide [SiO₂] in definite proportions. These chemicals possess an internal ability to absorb CO₂ that is emitted from the exhaust of an engine. The effectiveness of the scruffler was tested at two levels: the emission test and noise pollution test. The emission test was carried out using gas analyzer and thermochemical and thermoconductometric instrument. The noise pollution test was carried out to analyze the sound levels using sound decibel metre. The results obtained at the end of these tests have been reported in this paper. A comparative analysis of engines with a scruffler and in the absence of it has also been reported. It is discovered that, in idling condition of the engine, the emission of CO₂ without scruffler was 4% which was reduced to 3.608% after the scruffler was fixed. Similarly, in throttling condition, the emission of CO₂ reduced from 9.20% to 7.958% with the help of the scruffler. It is also inferred that the presence of this system, reduced the production of excessive noise to a considerable extent.

KEYWORDS:

• Muffler
• carbon dioxide scrubber
• emission
• air pollution
• noise pollution

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.