An investigation on utilization of biogas and syngas produced from biomass waste in premixed spark ignition engine

Syngas and biogas are two typical biofuels generated from biomass wastes through gasification and anaerobic digestion processes, which are considered to be the future fuels for IC engines. In this work, the utilization of biogas and syngas produced from horticultural waste in a premixed spark ignition engine was investigated. An experimentally validated KIVA4-based CFD simulation integrated with CHEMKIN was performed to evaluate engine performance fuelled by syngas and biogas under both single and blended-fuel modes. Effects of ignition timing, hydrogen content in syngas and methane content in biogas on both energetic and environmental performance have been studied. The indicated thermal efficiency (ITE) of syngas fueled engine at wide open throttle (WOT) condition under maximum brake torque (MBT) operation was found to be higher than that of biogas fueled engine, meanwhile, with much lower NOx emission. In addition, a comparison of the engine performance between the single and blended-fuel modes under different syngas mixing ratios was conducted in terms of ITE and NOx emission. The results suggest that the utilization of syngas and biogas under blended-fuel mode can not only maintain the MBT energetic performance under single-fuel mode, but also show its potential in reducing NOx emission and lessening the tendency of knock onset.