Exhaust gas treatment for reducing cold start emissions of a motorcycle engine fuelled with gasoline-ethanol blends

In countries like India, transportation by a two wheeled motorcycle is very common owing to affordable cost, easy handling and traffic congestion. Most of these bikes use single cylinder air cooled four-stroke spark ignition (SI) engines of displacement volume ranging from 100 cm3 to 250 cm3. CO and HC emissions from such engines when started after a minimum stop-time of 12 hours or more (cold-start emissions) are higher than warmed-up emissions. In the present study, a 150 cm3 single cylinder air cooled SI engine was tested for cold start emissions and exhaust gas temperature. Different gasoline-ethanol blends (E0 to E20) were used as fuel expecting better oxidation of HC and CO emissions with additional oxygen present in ethanol. The effect of glow plug assisted exhaust gas ignition (EGI) and use of catalytic converter on cold start emissions were studied separately using the same blends. Results show that with gasoline-ethanol blends, cold start CO and HC emissions were less than that with neat gasoline. And at an ambient temperature of 30±1°C, highest emission reductions were observed with E10. EGI without a catalytic converter had no significant effect on emissions except increasing the exhaust gas temperature. The catalytic converter was found to be active only after 120 seconds in converting cold start CO, HC and NOx. Use of a catalytic converter proves to be a better option than EGI in controlling cold start emissions with neat gasoline or gasoline-ethanol blends

Saccharothrix sp. PAL54, a new chloramphenicol-producing strain isolated from a Saharan soil

An actinomycete strain designated PAL54, producing an antibacterial substance, was isolated from a Saharan soil in Ghardaïa, Algeria. Morphological and chemical studies indicated that this strain belonged to the genus Saccharothrix. Analysis of the 16S rDNA sequence showed a similarity level ranging between 96.9 and 99.2% within Saccharothrix species, with S. longispora DSM 43749T, the most closely related. DNA–DNA hybridization confirmed that strain PAL54 belonged to Saccharothrix longispora. It showed very strong activity against pathogenic Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria responsible for nosocomial infections and resistant to multiple antibiotics. Strain PAL54 secreted the antibiotic optimally during mid-stationary and decline phases of growth. One antibacterial compound was isolated from the culture broth and purified by HPLC. The active compound was elucidated by uv-visible and NMR spectroscopy and by mass spectrometry. The results showed that this compound was a D(-)-threo chloramphenicol. This is the first report of chloramphenicol production by a Saccharothrix species

Thermal performance enhancement of paraffin wax with AL 2O 3 and CuO nanoparticles - A numerical study

10.5098/hmt.v2.4.3005Frontiers in Heat and Mass Transfer241-

EFFECT OF GASOLINE - ETHANOL BLENDS ON PERFORMANCE AND EMISSION CHARACTERISTICS OF A SINGLE CYLINDER AIR COOLED MOTOR BIKE SI ENGINE

This paper investigates the effect of using gasoline-ethanol (GE) blends on performance and exhaust emission of a four stroke 150 cc single cylinder air cooled spark ignition (SI) engine, without any modifications. Experiments were conducted at part load and different engine speeds ranging from 3000 to 5000 rpm, without and with catalytic converter. Ethanol content was varied from 5 percentage to 20 percentage by volume and four different blends (E5, E10, E15 and E20) were tested. Fuel consumption, engine speed, air fuel ratio, exhaust gas temperature and exhaust emissions were measured during each experiment. Brake thermal efficiency (ηb,th), volumetric efficiency (ηvol), brake specific fuel consumption (BSFC) and excess air factor were calculated for each test run. Brake specific fuel consumption, volumetric efficiency and excess air factor increased with ethanol percentage in the blend. Carbon monoxide (CO), hydrocarbon (HC) and oxides of nitrogen (NOx) emissions decreased with blends

Neem leaves mediated preparation of NiO nanoparticles and its magnetization, coercivity and antibacterial analysis

Nickel oxides nanoparticles (NiO NPs) were synthesized by biosynthesis method with the help of phytoconstituents present in the neem leaf. Further the synthesized NiO NPs were subjected for structural, optical, morphological and magnetic properties. The XRD patterns clearly infer the presence of polycrystalline nature of samples (0 1 0), (0 1 1) and (0 1 2) with hexagonal crystal phase. Morphological studies using Transmission Electron Microscope (TEM) reveals that the biosynthesized NiO NPs were in shape of oblong with 12 nm in size. Elemental analysis (EDAX) confirms the quantity of Ni is present at 51% and remaining O as 49% as well as the mass magnetization values of 61 emu/g are also recorded for NiO NPs and its coercivity values in the range of 0.2–0.4 of nanoparticles respectively. Finally the NiO NPs was studied for bacterial activity against Staphylococcus aureus (MTCC 1430) and followed by Escherichia coli (MTCC 739) by agar diffusion assay. Keywords: Neem seed, NiO NPs, Coercivity, Magnetic properties, Bacterial activitie