Biofuels

ISSN: 1759-7269 (Print) 1759-7277 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/tbfu20

Performance improvement and emission control

in a direct injection diesel engine using nano
catalyst coated pistons

Senthil Ramalingam, Silambarasan Rajendran & Pranesh Ganesan

To cite this article: Senthil Ramalingam, Silambarasan Rajendran & Pranesh Ganesan (2016):
Performance improvement and emission control in a direct injection diesel engine using nano
catalyst coated pistons, Biofuels, DOI: 10.1080/17597269.2016.1168020

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17597269.2016.1168020

Published online: 05 May 2016.

Submit your article to this journal

Article views: 1

View related articles

View Crossmark data

Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at

http://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=tbfu20

Download by: [University of California Santa Barbara] Date: 10 May 2016, At: 01:47
 BIOFUELS, 2016
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17597269.2016.1168020

Performance improvement and emission control in a direct injection

diesel engine using nano catalyst coated pistons
Senthil Ramalingama, Silambarasan Rajendranb and Pranesh Ganesanb
a
University College of Engineering Villupuram, Anna University, Chennai, India; bIC Engines Laboratory, University College of Engineering
Villupuram, Anna University, Villupuram, India

ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY

Due to environmental safety, limitations on the exhaust emissions of the internal combustion Received 21 September 2015
engine have become more and more severe. The important pollutants from diesel engine are Accepted 26 February 2016
oxides of nitrogen, particulates, hydrocarbon and carbon monoxide. It was found from the KEYWORDS
literature that various in-cylinder combustion treatment methods, such as ceramic coating on Nano catalyst; nano coating;
Downloaded by [University of California Santa Barbara] at 01:48 10 May 2016

the piston, diamond-like carbon coating on the piston, zirconia coating on the piston, and piston; emission; oxides of
various ceramic coatings on the cylinder head and liner, have been used in diesel engines to nitrogen
improve the performance and reduction of various emissions. In this present investigation, an
attempt has been made to study the performance and emissions from a direct injection diesel
engine using nano catalyst nano coated pistons. The pistons were coated with copper and
cadmium nano catalyst at the top of the piston using plasma spraying techniques. Engine
performance and emission characteristics were compared with baseline engine. It was
observed that there was significant improvement in the performance and reduction of various
pollutants emitted from the diesel engine.

Nomenclature environment. The diesel engine generally offers better

BP Brake Power fuel economy than its counterpart the petrol engine.
BTE Brake Thermal Efficiency
BSFC Brake Specific Fuel Consumption
CO Carbon Monoxide Emissions from diesel engines
HC Hydrocarbon
Major pollutants emitted by CI engines are unburned
NOx Oxides of Nitrogen
hydrocarbon, oxides of nitrogen, particulate and
SSN Sintered Silicon Nitride
smoke. These pollutants can be removed by means of
PSZ Partially Stabilized Zirconia
in-cylinder treatment, and it was found from the litera-
PPM Parts Per Million
ture that very few experiments have been conducted
CO2 Carbon Dioxide
in this regard. It was found that catalytic pre-reaction
CI Compression Engine
increases the flame velocity and reduces the minimum
LHR Low Heat Rejection
ignition energy requirements. Further it was reported
that catalytic pre-chamber technology regulates the
Introduction
catalytic surface temperature as well as contact
The problem of pollution is associated with the activity between the catalytic and gas phase reactants.[1]
of man to achieve material comfort, urbanization and In this paper the experiments shows that the perfor-
industrialization. Concentrations of pollutants emitted mance of Nerium oil biodiesel with diethyl ether,
from many of man’s activities cause adverse effects on dimethyl ether and ethanol additives.
plants, animals and human beings. The demands for Previous experimentation revealed that methyl
transportation, the ever increasing demand for electric ester from Annona A20 gives better performance and
power, and the expansion of industry to provide new reduced emission at 240 bar pressure.[2,3]
products have all combined to cause dangerous pollut- The ceramic coating on the engine components
ant levels in the atmosphere. The most serious prob- offers the advantages of lower density, excellent wear
lem is air pollution which leads to ozone depletion, resistance, increased stiffness, low thermal expansion
global warming and acid rain. In recent times, internal and high temperature capability over traditionally
combustion engines have come under heavy attack used metals. It was also found that silicon nitride offers
due to various problems created by them on the high temperature capabilities, controlled thermal

CONTACT Senthil Ramalingam drrs1970@aucev.edu.in

© 2016 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group

 2 S. RAMALINGAM ET AL.
conductivity, low thermal expansion, light weight and
increased stiffness over conventional materials.[4]
As a thin thermal barrier coating for the engine,
Cr2O3 offers outstanding tribological properties. Fur-
ther it has been inferred that those thin thermal barrier
coatings show improved volumetric efficiency, thermal
efficiency, durability, reliability, emission and erosion/
corrosion resistance of the engine.[5]
When a diesel engine combustion chamber wall
was thermally insulated with a ceramic material of sin-
tered silicon nitride (SSN) and partially stabilized zirco-
nia (PSZ), it showed improved performance and
decreased volumetric efficiency though increased NOx
emission. It has also been reported that when the cylin-
der head and cylinder liner were thermally insulated
with ceramic, brake specific fuel consumption (BSFC)
reduced for both naturally aspirated and turbocharged
Downloaded by [University of California Santa Barbara] at 01:48 10 May 2016
engines. Further it was reported that hydrocarbon
emissions reduced at low speed and sharply reduced
when injection timing was retarded by insulating the
piston head, cylinder liner and cylinder liner upper
part.[6]
It was found that the brake specific fuel consump-
tion increased and reduced the HC, CO2 emissions by
using sardine fish oil biodiesel in a diesel engine.[7]
The thermally insulated diesel engine showed equal
or superior fuel consumption, higher NOx emission,
and lower smoke and particulate emission. It was con-
cluded that the higher NOx emissions are partly due to
higher combustion temperature and partly due to
shorter combustion duration. Lower HC emissions are
due to a reduction in bulk quenching and wall quench-
ing of combustion reaction. It was concluded that the
reduction in smoke level and particulate was due to
the high gas temperature.[8]
The effect of design and operation variables on the
emission of pollutants from the combustion process
with particular reference to internal combustion
engines is given and strategies for minimizing the for-
mation of pollutants in combustion process were also
discussed by Natarajan.[9]
The ceramic coating on the combustion chamber of
a single-cylinder direct injection diesel engine shows
lower thermal efficiency with higher smoke, particulate
and carbon monoxide emissions when compared to
the baseline cooled engine. Further, the unburned
hydrocarbon emissions were reduced at all load condi-
tions. Low heat rejection (LHR) engine performance
was attributed to degraded combustion with less pre-
mixed burning, lower heat release rates and longer
combustion duration compared to the baseline cooled
engine.[10]
The combustion chamber and piston surfaces were
coated in mnemonic material. The liner, cylinder head
and valves were coated with partially stabilized zirconia,
and the coated engine shows lower volumetric
efficiency resulting from higher degrees of insulation
and also gives a negative effect on power output. The
smoke densities were lower than that of the standard
engine.[11]
A LHR engine and conventional engine under the
same air fuel ratio, peak conditions and identical heat
release showed improved thermal efficiency, increased
availability in the exhaust and reduced in-cylinder heat
rejection relative to conventionally cooled engines and
reduced exhaust emission.[12]
Heat loss through the piston with the use of 2 mm
thick insulation coating on the cylinder wall reduces by
6% and an increase in piston body temperature and
further increase in temperature with increase in the
thickness of insulation coating.[13]
Nickel coating the piston proved to be an effective
and reliable technique to protect the piston from com-
bustion-knock erosion and also reduced piston
deposit, increased wear resistance, reduced cylinder
head temperature, increased engine efficiency and
reduced knock sensitivity.[14]
Fredrik Ahistorm et al. studied the catalytic combus-
tion of diesel soot under the influence of metal oxides
and different metals. They placed the mixture of soot
and catalyst in a reactor and determined the combus-
tion rate. They concluded that oxides of vanadium
were highly active at temperatures above 6230K,
whereas the coated material are silver, platinum,
oxides of copper, chromium and manganese is active
at low combustion temperatures of diesel engine.[15]
The insulated piston consisting of titanium alloy
6242 and a slurry densified zirconia thermal barrier
coating showed the heat transfer can be reduced by
about 52%.[16]
Zirconia and chrome oxide thermal barrier coatings
on the cylinder head, valve face and piston crown of
an aluminum engine block showed improvement in
fuel consumption of 10%.[17] The optimum perfor-
mance was obtained by retarding the injection timing
with a ceramic coated engine [18] and higher NOx
emissions in the LHR engine was reduced by using a
variation of injection timing.[19,20] Further, it was also
proved that the effective efficiency of an engine is
increased while using ceramic coated engine compo-
nents.[21]
The top surfaces of the piston and valves were
coated with plasma spray coating method by using
100 mm of NiCrAl as lining layer and over this layer the
same surfaces were coated with 400 mm of the mixture
that consists of %88 ZrO2, %4 MgO and %8 Al2O3. Par-
tial increases were observed in power, exhaust mani-
fold temperature and engine noise, while partial
decreases were seen in BSFC.[22]
A piston crown was coated with Yttria Stabilized Zir-
conia (YSZ) to understand the influence of the thermal
barrier coating (TBC) on performance and emission
characteristics in comparison with baseline engine
characteristics. YSZ was chosen as the candidate

material for coating the piston crown because of its
desirable physical properties such as high coefficient
of thermal expansion, low thermal conductivity, high
Poisson’s ratio, and stable phase structure at higher
temperature conditions.[23]
The engine was thermally insulated by coating some
parts of it, such as piston, exhaust and intake valve sur-
faces, with zirconium oxide (ZrO2). The main purpose of
the engine coating was to reduce heat rejection from
the walls of the combustion chamber and to increase
thermal efficiency and thus to increase performance of
the engine using vegetable oil blends. Another aim of
the study was to improve the usability of pure vegeta-
ble oils in diesel engines without performing any fuel
treatments such as pyrolysis, emulsification and transes-
terification. Pure inedible cottonseed oil and sunflower
oil were blended with diesel fuel. Blends and diesel fuel
Downloaded by [University of California Santa Barbara] at 01:48 10 May 2016
were then tested in the coated diesel engine.[24]
The aim of the present work is to study the perfor-
mance and emissions from the direct injection diesel
engine using nano catalyst nano coated pistons. The
pistons were coated with copper and cadmium nano
catalyst at the top of the piston using a plasma spray-
ing technique. There was significant improvement in
the performance and a reduction of various pollutants
emitted from the diesel engine.
Nano catalyst coating
Nano catalyst coatings were used to provide layers on
the piston surface, and were observed to change the
properties of the coated piston. The final coating will
exhibit properties of both the coating and the base
metal. Nano catalyst coatings protect the metal com-
ponents against moisture, salt spray and exposure to
chemicals and they also provide abrasive resistance
and inducing catalytic reaction in the combustion
chamber.
There are a number of methods available to coat a
piston. In this present investigation, the piston top was
coated with copper and nickel nano catalysts using a
plasma-spray technique. The nano catalyst in the form
of powder is injected into a very high temperature
plasma flame, where it is rapidly heated and acceler-
ated to a high velocity. The plasma gun comprises a
copper anode and tungsten cathode, both of which
are water cooled. Plasma gas (argon, helium, nitrogen,
hydrogen) flows around the cathode and through the
anode which is shaped as a constricting nozzle. Further
the piston top was coated with copper and nickel
nano catalysts.
Transesterification of vegetable oils
Transesterification is the process of using an alcohol
(e.g. methanol or ethanol) in the presence of a catalyst
such as sodium hydroxide (NaOH) or potassium
BIOFUELS 3
hydroxide (KOH), which chemically breaks the mole-
cule of the raw oil into methyl or ethyl esters with glyc-
erol as a by-product, which reduces the high viscosity
of the oils. This method also reduces the molecular
weight of the oil to one-third of its original value,
reduces the viscosity, and increase the volatility and
cetane number to levels comparable to diesel fuel.
Conversion does not greatly affect the gross heat of
combustion. Transesterification is the change of the
trivalent glycerine molecules converted into monova-
lent molecules. Each is a monoester. In most vegetable
oils, fatty acids with 16 and 18 carbon atoms
predominate.
O O
|| ||
CH2-O-C-R1 CH3-O- C-R1
|
| O O CH2-OH
| || || |
CH-O-C-R2+3CH3OH → CH3-O-C-R1 + CH-OH
| (KOH)
| O || CH2-OH
| || O
CH2-O-C-R3 CH3-O-C-R3
Triglyceride Methanol Mixture of fatty esters Glycerine
Experimental setup and test procedure
The compression ignition engine used for this study
was a Texwel AVI single-cylinder, four-stroke, constant
speed, vertical, water cooled and direct injection diesel
engine The engine is coupled to a swinging field gen-
erator. A resistance loading device measures the load.
An IIP smoke meter measures smoke and particulates.
A thermocouple measures the exhaust gas tempera-
ture. A Horiba analyzer measures HC and CO emissions.
A chemiluminescent analyzer measures the oxides of
nitrogen. The experimental setup is shown in Figure 1.
The engine was started by cranking and allowed to
run at a rated speed of 1500 rpm by adjusting the fuel
supply. Load was applied through rheostats and the
time taken for 10 cc fuel consumption was measured
with the help of a burette and a stopwatch. Initially the
experiment was conducted for uncoated pistons (base-
line engine). Then copper and nickel nano catalyst
coated pistons were used to conduct the experiment.
The emission and performance results were calculated
and compared with the baseline engine.
Result and discussion
Figure 2 shows the variation of hydrocarbon emissions
with brake power of the engine with uncoated pistons
and with nano catalyst coated pistons. Hydrocarbon
emissions increase with load in all cases. The hydrocar-
bon emission at maximum load is 45 PPM for nano
 4 S. RAMALINGAM ET AL.
Downloaded by [University of California Santa Barbara] at 01:48 10 May 2016

Figure 1. Experimental setup.

copper coated piston which is lower by 80 PPM from
the value for the uncoated piston amounting to a
reduction of 64%. Further it is also seen that nano cop-
per coated catalyst piston shows lower value of hydro-
carbon emission at all loads, from that of the uncoated
and nickel catalyst coated pistons. This may be due to
the higher catalytic activity of copper in the combus-
tion process and decreased quenching distance.
The variation of smoke level with brake power of
the engine for different nano catalyst coated pistons

Figure 2. Variation of hydrocarbon with brake power.


Figure 3. Variation of smoke with brake power.
Downloaded by [University of California Santa Barbara] at 01:48 10 May 2016
along with uncoated pistons is shown in Figure 3. The
smoke levels remain the same up to 20% load for all
pistons. Beyond 20% load the smoke level increases
with load for all nano catalyst coated pistons and
uncoated pistons. The percentage reduction of smoke
level for all pistons is very low. It was observed that at
maximum load the smoke level for nano copper
coated piston is 3.0 BSU, which is lower than that of
the uncoated piston by 0.8 BSU. Thus among catalyst
coated pistons, copper nano catalyst coated piston
effectively reduces the smoke level up to a maximum
of 21% when compared with uncoated piston at maxi-
mum load. This may be due to the presence of catalyst
in the combustion chamber and also higher tempera-
ture after combustion.
NOx is generally formed at a high temperature, due
to the higher oxygen content present in the biodiesel.
The high amount of nitrogen present in the air is also a
reason for the increase in NOx emission. Figure 4
shows NOx emission with brake power of the engine
for different nano catalyst coated pistons along with
uncoated pistons. It is seen from the graph that there
Figure 4. Variation of NOx with brake power.
BIOFUELS 5
is an increase in NOx emission with respect to all loads
for all pistons.
It is also seen that at no load itself the NOx level
reduces for all catalyst coated pistons. For copper
coated piston and uncoated piston for the NOx emis-
sion level was 45 PPM and 35 PPM and a reduction of
about 45.7% when compared to uncoated piston. At
maximum load NOx emission for copper nano coated
piston is lower by 62.5% than that of the uncoated pis-
ton due to higher catalytic activity in the presence of
metal catalyst in the combustion chamber and also
longer combustion duration.
Figure 5 Shows the variation of brake thermal
efficiency with brake power of the engine for nano
catalyst coated pistons along with uncoated pistons.
Brake thermal efficiency increases with load for all
catalyst coated pistons. It is also seen that for
copper nano coated pistons the brake thermal effi-
ciency is 36.2% at maximum load which is 7.2%
higher than that of the uncoated piston. This is due
to complete combustion in the presence of the
catalyst.
 6 S. RAMALINGAM ET AL.
Figure 5. Variation of brake thermal efficiency with brake power.
Downloaded by [University of California Santa Barbara] at 01:48 10 May 2016
Conclusion
The nano catalyst coated piston shows significant
improvement in the performance of the engine. The
brake thermal efficiency and specific fuel consumption
were improved in the copper nano catalyst coated pis-
ton. Among the copper chromium nano catalyst coated
pistons the copper nano catalyst piston reduces hydro-
carbon, smoke particulate and oxides of nitrogen to a
larger extent than other metal catalyst coated pistons.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
References
[1] Steven W. Beyerlein, Stanislaw Wojcicki, A lean burn cat-
alytic engine. SAE Trans. 1988;880574:6.1040 6.1051.
[2] Senthil R, Silambarasan R. Influence of injection pres-
sure on performance, emission and combustion charac-
teristics of annona methyl ester operated DI diesel
engine. Oxid. Commun. 2015;38(2):818 829.
[3] Senthil R, Arunan K, Silambarasan R. Effect Of oxygen-
ated additives on exhaust emissions reduction in Di die-
sel engine using biodiesel and its blends. Oxid.
Commun. 2015;38(2):841 851.
[4] Roger P. Worthen, Rune R, Aravid E. Pasto. Ceramic
engine components. SAE Trans. 1988;881150:3.892 923.
[5] Kamo R, Dennis N. Assanis, Bryzik W. Thin thermal barrier
coatings for engines. SAE Trans. 1989;890143:131 136.
[6] Miyairi Y, Matsuhisa T, Oikawa H, et al. Selective heat
insulation of combustion chamber walls for a direct
injection diesel engine with monolithic ceramic. SAE
Trans. 1989;890141:117 132.
[7] Franco A, Shenbaga vinayaga moorthi N, Sathish Gandhi
VC. Performance and emission study of sardine fish oil
biodiesel in a diesel engine. Oxid. Commun. 01/2014;37
(3):802 816.
[8] Alkidas AC. Performance and emissions achievements
with an uncooled heavy duty, single cylinder diesel
engine. SAE Trans. 1989;890144:137 148.
[9] Natarajan R. Combustion generated air pollution. IE (I).
Journal (Mech) 1994;74:157 161.
[10] Dickey Daniel W. The effect of insulated combustion
chamber surfaces on direct injection diesel engine per-
formance, emission and combustion. SAE Trans.
1989;890292:3.332 3.348.
[11] Arunachalam M, Rao PS, Gopalakrishnan KV, et al.
Performance of a diesel engine with thermally insulated
combustion chamber. IE(I). Journal (Mech)
1989;70:52 55.
[12] Reddy CS, Domingo N, Graves RL. Low heat rejection
engine research status; Where do we go from here? SAE
Trans. 1990;900620:1386 1398.
[13] Prasad R, Shmrisa NK. Heat transfer in the piston of a
semi adiabatic diesel engine. IE(I) Journal. (Mech)
1990;70:103 107.
[14] Boehm G, Harrer J. Nickel coated piston for improved
durability and knock control engines. SAE Trans.
1990;900453:656 668.
[15] Fredrik Ahlstorm A, Ingemar Odenbrand CU. Catalytic
combustion of soot deposits from diesel engines. J.
Applied Catalysis 1990;60:143 156.
[16] Woods M, Glance P. Advanced insulated titanium
piston for adiabatic engine. SAE Trans. 1990;900623:
756 771.
[17] Katsuyuki , Geralti B, Kamu R. Performance of thin ther-
mal barrier coating on small aluminium block diesel
engine. SAE Trans. 1984;910461:383 395.
[18] Parlak A, Sahim B, Yasar H. Performance optimization of
an irreversible dual cycle with respect to pressure ratio
and temperature ratio—experimental results of a
ceramic coated IDI Diesel engine. Energy Convers.
Manage. 2004;45:1219 1232.
[19] Parlak A, Yasar B, Hasimoglu C, et al. The effect of
injection timing on NOx emissions of low heat rejection
indirect injection engine. Appl. Therm. Eng. 2005;25:
3042 3052.
[20] Buyukkaya E, Cerit M. Experimental study of NOx emis-
sions and injection timing of a low heat rejection diesel
engine. Int. J. Therm. Sci. 2008;47:1096 1106.

[21] Taymaz I, Cakir K, Mimaroglu A. Experimental study of
effective efficiency in a ceramic coated diesel engine.
Surf. Coat. Technol. 2005;200:1182 1185.
[22] Aydin S, Sayin C, Aydin H. Investigation of the usability
of biodiesel obtained from residual frying oil in a diesel
engine with thermal barrier coating. Appl. Therm. Eng.
2015;80:212 219.
[23] Sivakumar G, Senthil Kumar S. Investigation on effect of
Yttria Stabilized Zirconia coated piston crown on
Downloaded by [University of California Santa Barbara] at 01:48 10 May 2016
BIOFUELS 7
performance and emission characteristics of a diesel
engine. Alexandria Engineering Journal December
2014;53(4):787 794.
[24] Aydin H. Combined effects of thermal barrier coating
and blending with diesel fuel on usability of vegetable
oils in diesel engines. Appl. Therm. Eng. March 2013;51
(1 2):623 629.