Performance of Waste Insulating Mineral Oil-Based Biodiesel in a Direct-Injection CI Engine

Mineral oil has been used as an insulating fluid in the power industry. However, surplus waste oil poses serious environmental threats because of disposal concerns. Waste to biofuel is an excellent way to deal with waste material from various sources. In this study, the trans-esterification method was utilised to convert the waste-insulating mineral oil into a quality bio-fuel. Waste-insulating transformer oil was converted to biodiesel, and it was tested according to ASTM standards. Four different blends of waste-insulating biodiesel with diesel in 25 per cent (WIOBD25), 50 per cent (WIOBD50), 75 per cent (WIOBD75), and 100 per cent fractions (WIOBD100), were used for performance testing in a direct injection compression ignition (DICI) engine. The combustion parameters such as BSFC, EGT, and BTE were evaluated with varying crank angles and constant engine speed. The waste-insulating biodiesel performance results are then compared with diesel fuel. BSFC increased as the biofuel mixture in diesel was raised, and the brake thermal efficiency (BTE) was significantly reduced compared to diesel for all WIOBD diesel mixtures. Due to the combustion process, a high pressure and heat release rate (HRR) were noticed inside the cylinder with the waste-insulating oil-derived biodiesel samples. WIOBD biodiesel blends produced lower levels of hydrocarbon, carbon monoxide, and smoke emissions than diesel fuel, but greater levels of nitrogen oxides (NOx) were produced than diesel fuel. In addition to lower emissions combined with improved engine performance, the WIOBD25 fuel blend has been found to be experimentally optimal for practical application. As a result, the test findings indicated that WIOBD biodiesel might be used as a substitute for conventional diesel fuel.

Odor and Constituent Odorants of HDPE–Lignin Blends of Different Lignin Origin

The still-rising global demand for plastics warrants the substitution of non-renewable mineral oil-based resources with natural products as a decisive step towards sustainability. Lignin is one of the most abundant natural polymers and represents an ideal but hitherto highly underutilized raw material to replace petroleum-based resources. In particular, the use of lignin composites, especially polyolefin–lignin blends, is currently on the rise. In addition to specific mechanical property requirements, a challenge of implementing these alternative polymers is their heavy odor load. This is especially relevant for lignin, which exhibits an intrinsic odor that limits its use as an ingredient in blends intended for high quality applications. The present study addressed this issue by undertaking a systematic evaluation of the odor properties and constituent odorants of commercially available lignins and related high-density polyethylene (HDPE) blends. The potent odors of the investigated samples could be attributed to the presence of 71 individual odorous constituents that originated primarily from the structurally complex lignin. The majority of them was assignable to six main substance classes: carboxylic acids, aldehydes, phenols, furan compounds, alkylated 2-cyclopenten-1-ones, and sulfur compounds. The odors were strongly related to both the lignin raw materials and the different processes of their extraction, while the production of the blends had a lower but also significant influence. Especially the investigated soda lignin with hay- and honey-like odors was highly different in its odorant composition compared to lignins resulting from the sulfurous kraft process predominantly characterized by smoky and burnt odors. These observations highlight the importance of sufficient purification of the lignin raw material and the need for odor abatement procedures during the compounding process. The molecular elucidation of the odorants causing the strong odor represents an important procedure to develop odor reduction strategies.

Dielectric Properties of Electrical Insulating Liquids for High Voltage Electric Devices in a Time-Varying Electric Field

The motivation to improve components in electric power equipment brings new proposals from world-renowned scientists to strengthen them in operation. An essential part of every electric power equipment is its insulation system, which must have the best possible parameters. The current problem with mineral oil replacement is investigating and testing other alternative electrical insulating liquids. In this paper, we present a comparison of mineral and hydrocarbon oil (liquefied gas) in terms of conductivity and relaxation mechanisms in the complex plane of the Cole-Cole diagram and dielectric losses. We perform the comparison using the method of dielectric relaxation spectroscopy in the frequency domain at different intensities of the time-varying electric field 0.5 kV/m, 5 kV/m, and 50 kV/m. With the increasing intensity of the time-varying electric field, there is a better approximation of the Debye behavior in all captured polarization processes of the investigated oils. By comparing the distribution of relaxation times, mineral oil shows closer characteristics to Debye relaxation. From the point of view of dielectric losses at the main frequency, hydrocarbon oil achieves better dielectric properties at all applied intensities of the time-varying electric field, which is very important for practical use.

Effect of Temperature Variation on Oil in Oscillation of Mass/Load

In this investigation a model was made to replicate the working of a shock absorber and the liquid that is used in place of the hydraulic fluid was vegetable oil. Hydraulic fluid is composed of a mineral oil base stock [1]. The working of the model of a shock absorber was tested at different temperatures. It is studied that the relation between the temperature and the time taken by the load attached to the spring to stop oscillating and presented in graph. An optimum temperature, at which the time taken by the mass of 1.50 kilograms suspended in the vegetable oil to stop oscillating and it is the least mass used in the study. In addition to this, the freezing point of the vegetable oil will also be found. It is found in this study that the two variables that is temperature of the vegetable oil and the mass of 1.5 kilograms at rest is linear. Keywords: Temperature Variation, Oil, Oscillation, Mass, Load.

In Search of a “Stable Green Nanofluid” for Applications in High Voltage Equipment

Nanofluids are considered as the next generation of dielectric fluids due to their higher thermal conductivity and dielectric properties. In this investigation, locally produced ester oils, such as rice bran oil (RBO) and jatropha oil (JO), were compared with mineral oil (MO). Initially, hydrophilic SiO2 nano particles were used to prepare nanofluids using RBO and MO. However, results showed that with loading of nanoparticles (NPs) up to 0.075 g/L, the dielectric strength (DS) of MO based NFs increased but decreased drastically with further increase in loading as these suffered agglomeration and sedimentation in less than 72 h. To overcome this drawback, NPs were functionalized under plasma discharge. These efforts also did not yield many favorable results. Instead, hydrophobic fumed silica NPs grafted with hexamethyldi-siloxane (HMDS) were utilized for further study. Plasma treated NFs exhibited improved DS, as well as excellent dispersibility and stability.