Influence of Gasohol on Performance Parameters and Emissions Characteristics of Two Stroke Copper Coated Spark Ignition Engine

The world’s rapidly dwindling crude oil supplies, their rising cost and the rapid growing of automobile pollutions from fossil fuels have led to an intensive search for alternative fuels. Experiments were conducted to evaluate the performance and control the exhaust emissions from two-stroke, single cylinder, spark ignition (SI) engine, with alcohol blended gasoline (80% gasoline and 20% ethanol by volume) having copper coated combustion chamber [CCCC, copper-(thickness, 300 μ) coated on piston crown, inner side of cylinder head] provided with catalytic converter with sponge iron as catalyst and compared with conventional SI engine (CE) with pure gasoline operation. Performance parameters (brake thermal efficiency, exhaust gas temperature and volumetric efficiency) and exhaust emissions (carbon monoxide (CO) and un-burnt hydro carbons (UBHC)) were determined with different values of brake mean effective pressure of the engine. A microprocessor-based analyzer was used for the measurement of CO/UBHC in the exhaust of the engine. Copper coated combustion chamber with alcohol blended gasoline considerably improved the performance and reduced pollutants in comparison with CE with pure gasoline operation. Catalytic converter with air injection significantly reduced pollutants with test fuels on both configurations of the combustion chamber. The catalyst, sponge reduced the pollutants effectively with both test fuels in both versions of the combustion chamber.