PhD / Master’s Degree by Research

(Science, Engineering, and Technology)

ASSIGNMENT COVER SHEET

Course Code: RES70203

Course Name: Research Methods for Science

Name Student Number

Nursyahirah Insyirah Binti Arshad 0336804

Assignment No./Title Assignment 1

Course Tutor/Lecturer Assoc. Prof. Dr Raja

Declaration

I/we* certify that this assignment is entirely my/our* own work, except where I/we* have given
fully documented references to the work of others, and that the material contained in this
assignment has not previously been submitted for assessment in any other formal course of
study.

* Delete where applicable (depends on whether individual or group assignment).

Signature of Student:

Grade: Evaluated by:

Evaluator's Comments:
PART A

Q1) State your working research title, and name of the main and co-supervisor:

1. Research Title: Compatibility of fuel delivery metals with water in biodiesel-diesel

fuel blend

2. Main Supervisor: Dr Rashmi Gangasa Walvekar

Q2) List at least 10 cited journal articles/papers that is directly relevant to your research
topic.

Cited Journals/ Articles:

1) Chen, Z., Wang, X., Pei, Y., Zhang, C., Xiao, M., & He, J. (2015). Experimental
investigation of the performance and emissions of diesel engines by a novel
emulsified diesel fuel. Energy Conversion and Management, 95,pp. 334–341.
2) Ithnin, A. M., Ahmad, M. A., Bakar, M. A. A., Rajoo, S., & Yahya, W. J. (2015).
Combustion performance and emission analysis of diesel engine fuelled with water-
in-diesel emulsion fuel made from low-grade diesel fuel. Energy Conversion and
Management, 90,pp ( 375–382).
3) Huo, M., Lin, S., Liu, H., & Lee, C. F. (2014). Study on the spray and combustion
characteristics of water–emulsified diesel. Fuel, 123, pp ( 218–229).
4) Attia, A. M. A., & Kulchitskiy, A. R. (2014). Influence of the structure of water-in-
fuel emulsion on diesel engine performance. Fuel, 116, pp (703–708).
5) Ithnin, A. M., Noge, H., Abdul Kadir, H., & Jazair, W. (2014). An overview of
utilizing water-in-diesel emulsion fuel in diesel engine and its potential research
study. Journal of the Energy Institute, 87(4), pp (273–288).
6) Ogunkoya, D., Li, S., Rojas, O. J., & Fang, T. (2015). Performance, combustion,
and emissions in a diesel engine operated with fuel-in-water emulsions based on
lignin. Applied Energy, 154, pp( 851–861).
7) Park, S., Woo, S., Kim, H., & Lee, K. (2016). The characteristic of spray using
diesel water emulsified fuel in a diesel engine. Applied Energy, 176, pp (209–220).
 8) Melo-Espinosa, E. A., Piloto-Rodríguez, R., Goyos-Pérez, L., Sierens, R., &
Verhelst, S. (2015). Emulsification of animal fats and vegetable oils for their use as
a diesel engine fuel: An overview. Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, 47,
pp (623–633).
9) Suresh V1, Amirthagadeswaran K S2, Vijayakumar S3, Varun B4, (2014).
Emission Characteristics of Diesel Engine using Water-in-Diesel Emulsified Fuel
and its CFD Analysis, 5 , pp. (2739-2749).
10) Wang, Z., Chen, X., Huang, S., Chen, Y., Mack, J. H., Tang, J. Huang, R. (2016).
Visualization study for the effects of oxygen concentration on combustion
characteristics of water-emulsified diesel. Fuel, 177, pp (226–234).

Q3) List at least 6 high ranking International Conferences, and 6 Cited Journals in your
research area.

a) 6 high ranking International Conferences:

1) 2018 International Conference on Chemical, Biological and Biomolecular

Engineering in Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR China

2) 12th European Congress Of Chemical Engineering in Florence, Italy

3) 540th International Conference on Chemical and Biochemical Engineering

(ICCBE) in Rome, Italy

4) Global Congress on Advancements in Catalysis and Chemical Engineering

Process in Madrid, Spain
5) 5th International Conference on Advances in Chemical Engineering and
technology in United Kingdom

6) 7th Annual International Conference on Chemistry, Chemical Engineering and

Chemical Process in Singapore

b) 6 Cited Journals:

1) Jianwei Fu, Zhonghui Chen, Minghuan Wang, Shujun Liu, Jinghui Zhang,
Jianan Zhang, Runping Han, Qun Xu (2015) Adsorption of methylene blue by a high-
efficiency adsorbent (polydopamine microspheres): Kinetics, isotherm,
thermodynamics and mechanism analysis. Volume 259, Pages 53-61
 2) Min Cheng, Guangming Zeng, Danlian Huang, Cui Lai, Piao Xu, Chen Zhang,
Yang Liu (2016) Hydroxyl radicals based advanced oxidation processes (AOPs) for
remediation of soils contaminated with organic compounds: A review Volume 284,
Pages 582-598

3) Akshay Jain, Rajasekhar Balasubramanian, M. P. Srinivasan (2016)

Hydrothermal conversion of biomass waste to activated carbon with high porosity: A
review. Volume 283, Pages 789-805

4) Limei Cui, Yaoguang Wang, Liang Gao, Lihua Hu, Liangguo Yan, Qin Wei,
Bin Du (2015) EDTA functionalized magnetic graphene oxide for removal of Pb(II),
Hg(II) and Cu(II) in water treatment: Adsorption mechanism and separation property.
Volume 281, Pages 1-10

5) M. Ghaedi, S. Hajjati, Z. Mahmudi, I. Tyagi, Shilpi Agarwal, A. Maity, V. K.

Gupta (2015) Modeling of competitive ultrasonic assisted removal of the dyes -
Methylene blue and Safranin-O using Fe3O4nanoparticles. Volume 268, Pages 28-37

6) Chella Santhosh, Venugopal Velmurugan, George Jacob, Soon Kwan Jeong,

Andrews Nirmala Grace, Amit Bhatnagar (2016) Role of nanomaterials in water
treatment applications: A review. Volume 306, Pages 1116-1137

Q4) List at least 5 main researchers working in your research area:

1) Qingfeng Dong (PhD)

Department of Mechanical and Materials Engineering, University of Nebraska,

Lincoln, NE 68588, US

2) George W. Huber (PhD)

Chemical and Biological Engineering Department, University of Wisconsin-Madison

3) Suk Won Cha (PhD)

Seoul National University

 4) Chunshan Song (PhD)

Distinguished Professor of Fuel Science & Chem Eng and Director of Energy Institute
at Penn State

5) Bruce E Logan (PhD)

Professor of Environmental Engineering, Penn State

PART B [CRITICAL ANALYSIS]

1) Identify and state the research questions/hypothesis/objectives.

The authors identified their problem statement which is the analysis of these
works and many others did not show a high degree of reproducibility or consistency
about the effects of water-in-fuel emulsion (WFE) on engine performance. This
indicates that, there are additional factors that are not considered during these studies.
One Major factor that is rarely studied during the use of WFE in engines is the emulsion
structure that is described in terms of the size distribution of water droplets and the
average diameter of water droplets within emulsion.
They state that the general effect of water-in-fuel emulsion on the fuel properties
and the engine combustion can be summarized as the reduction of spray angle with the
increase of water content due to viscosity increase and the increase of ignition delay
period with the increase of water content whatever the fuel type. Besides, the reduction
of the emulsified fuel combustion duration or the reduction of emulsified droplet
lifetime (especially for heavy fuels, where the possibility of micro-explosion
occurrence is higher) and the increase of the local excess air factor as due to greater air
aspiration caused by the movement of droplets of larger density and viscosity and the
increase of the injected emulsified fuel volume to maintain the same engine power.
Their objective of their research was to study the effect of emulsion structure
on diesel engine performance.

2) Briefly explain the major theories that the research paper examines.
The major theories that the research paper examines is the effect of the structure
of water-in-diesel emulsion on a cylinder diesel engine performance. From the
membrane emulsification, two different membranes of pore sizes of 0.2µm and 0.45µm
each had been used to change the emulsion structure. At the same time, they will be
keeping the same WFE volumetric content which was at 17%water volumetric content
and 0.5% mixing surfactant. The authors expected that the emulsions with large size of
water droplets will produce greater reduction in NOχ emissions compare to the finer
size water droplet.
3) What is the research methodology employed?
In this article, the methodology used experimentation. Experimentation of the
water-in-fuel emulsion (WFE) on diesel engine performance. The preparation of WFE
had been prepared by using the experimental setup. The setup was based on the
membrane emulsification using cylindrical ceramic membrane of inner diameter 6mm
outer diameter of 10mm, length of 22cm, porosity of 50%, and pore size of 0.2µm (or
0.45µm). They added span80 and tween60 (0.5% by volume) for improving of
emulsion stability. All experiments were performed at laminar flow of diesel fuel within
the cylindrical membrane. The prepared emulsion has been characterized visually with
the help of optical microscope Micromed 3 with digital camera DCM-510 to capture
the emulsion structure and the dynamic light scattering system Horiba LB-550 to get
the water droplet size distribution.
The experiments on engine have been performed using turbo charged three-
cylinder diesel engine (the cylinder diameter is 105mm and the piston stroke is 120mm
with compression ratio of 15) installed on engine test facility SAK-H-670. The basic
instrumentations include fuel flow meter (AVL-730), air flow meter (RG-400), exhaust
gas analyzer (AVL DiCom-4000) and smoke meter (AVL 415S). The tests were
conducted without any engine modifications (except removing of the fine fuel filter to
ensure that water droplets are not removed). The tests were performed according to
standard of GOST R-41.96-2005 (equivalent to EC No. 96-01). The engine runs on
diesel fuel and on other two identical samples of WFE (with volumetric water
concentration of 17% and mixing emulsifier concentration of 0.5%) prepared with the
help of two membranes (one has pore size of 0.2 µm while the other of 0.45 µm) with
mixing conditions.

4) Summarize the results, impacts if any and conclusion.

In the final stage of their work, the diesel engine performances working on
traditional diesel fuel (DF) and WFE with different structures (using membrane of pore
size 0.2 µm and 0.45 µm; designated as WFE-0.2 µm and WFE-0.45 µm, respectively)
have been studied, the following results were obtained. First, reduces the concentration
of NOχ and Cn Hm in the exhaust gases and reduces the exhaust gas smoke level (N)
when the WFE being used compared with diesel fuel. Second, the best effect of using
WFE on the reduction of engine emissions occurs at engine load more than 75% of total
 load and the use of emulsion with smaller water droplet size provides greater reduction
of Cn Hm (more than 35%) and smoke level N (more than 80%) in addition to the
increase of engine effective brake efficiency 𝜂𝑒 (up to 20%). Besides, the emulsion with
larger water droplet size provides greater reduction of NOχ emissions. Moreover, the
effective engine efficiency is always improved at the entire range of working loads
when WFE have smaller water droplet size (WFE-0.2µm) up to 1.2 times the engine
efficiency when DF is used, and only improved at the medium and high engine loads
when WFE of larger water droplet size is used (WFE-0.45µm).
The increase of contact area between water and fuel for emulsion of smaller
water droplet size enhances the heat and mass transfer between fuel and water and so
the mixing process improved in addition to better distribution of generated active
radicals leading to notable reduction of smoke level.

Conclusion
As the conclusion, the built emulsion preparation unit and the proposed method
to regulate the emulsion structure stabilized by mixing emulsifiers have been confirmed
to produce identical emulsions with different structures. Besides, it is not only the
increase of water content within WFE emulsion but also the reduction of water droplet
size result in an increase of the emulsion viscosity. Then, the use of WFE results in
increasing the engine efficiency up to 1.2 times the engine efficiency operated with pure
diesel fuel. Moreover, the use of WFE has a notable environmental impact on the
reduction of engine emissions (nitrogen oxides and unburned hydrocarbons) and on the
reduction of exhaust gas smoke level. The emulsion structure has a clear effect on the
engine performances; the great impact of WFE having large water droplet size occurs
on the emissions of nitrogen oxides, while that of smaller water droplet on emissions
of unburned hydrocarbons and the smoke level of exhaust gases.

5) What is the major contribution of the research identified by the research paper you
analyzed?
This research aim at better utilization of low calorific fuels and improving
engine performance while meeting environmental regulations. The good emission
exhaust produced help to reduce the air pollution and have a good environment.
References:

1) Attia, A. M. A., & Kulchitskiy, A. R. (2014). Influence of the structure of water-in-fuel

emulsion on diesel engine performance. Fuel, 116, pp (703–708).