The Performance of a Spark Ignition Engine Fueled with Landfill Gases 2006-01-3428

The recent interest to use Alternative Fuels for power generation and or mobile power is mainly driven by the serious environmental concerns and energy security of the nation. In this context, the utilization of the landfill gases which are generally low heating valve (Btu) content fuels and normally produced from municipal and city solid waste such as in landfills or garbage dump sites has been increasingly used due to the two fold benefits; firstly, the proper utilization of the gas will avoid the green house gas effect and other environmental concerns and secondly it can produce revenue for the local governments or industries at the same time. The paper describes the results of the investigation of the utilization of landfill gases in a spark ignition (SI) engine. Methane and landfill gas compositions were tested and their performance and combustion characteristics are studied and compared. Though the performance and combustion characteristics of landfill gas operation are deteriorated from that of methane operation, increasing the compression ratio and increasing the spark advance improved the performance of the landfill gas operation. The cyclic variations of landfill gas operation are studied for various combustion characteristics and are compared with that of methane operation.