Energy is an essential prerequisite for economical and social growth of any country. Skyrocketing
of petroleum fuel cost s in present day has led to growing interest in alternative
fuels like CNG, LPG, Producer gas, Biogas in order to provide suitable substitute to diesel for
a compression ignition engine. This paper discusses some experimental investigations on
dual fuel operation of a 4 cylinder (turbocharged and intercooled) 62.5 kW gen-set diesel
engine with hydrogen, producer gas (PG) and mixture of producer gas and hydrogen as
secondary fuels. Results on brake thermal efficiency and emissions, namely, un-burnt
hydrocarbon (HC), carbon monoxide (CO), and NOx are presented here. The paper also
contains vital information relating to the performances of an engine at a wide range of load
conditions with different gaseous fuel substitutions. When only hydrogen is used as secondary
fuel, maximum increase in the brake thermal efficiency is 7% which is obtained
with 20% of secondary fuel. When only producer gas is used as secondary fuel, maximum
decrease in the brake thermal efficiency of 8% is obtained with 30% of secondary fuel.
Compared to the neat diesel operation, proportion of un-burnt HC and CO increases, while,
emission of NOx reduces in all Cases. On the other hand, when 40% of mixture of producer
gas and hydrogen is used (in the ratio (60:40) as secondary fuel, brake thermal efficiency
reduces marginally by 3%. Further, shortcoming of low efficiency at lower load condition in
a dual fuel operation is removed when a mixture of hydrogen and producer gas is used as
the secondary fuel at higher than 13% load condition. Based on the performance studied, a
mixture of producer gas and hydrogen in the proportion of 60:40 may be used as a supplementary
fuel for diesel conservation.