EXHAUST GAS RECIRCULATION

All internal combustion engines generate power by creating explosions using fuel and air. These explosions occur inside the engine's cylinders and push the pistons down, which turns the crankshaft. Some of the power thus produced is used to prepare the cylinders for the next explosion by forcing the exhaust gases out of the cylinder, drawing in air (or fuel-air mixture in non-diesel engines), and compressing the air or fuel-air mixture before the fuel is ignited.

There are several differences between diesel engines and non-diesel engines. Non-diesel engines combine a fuel mist with air before the mixture is taken into the cylinder, while diesel engines inject fuel into the cylinder after the air is taken in and compressed. Non-diesel engines use a spark plug to ignite the fuel-air mixture, while diesel engines use the heat created by compressing the air in the cylinder to ignite the fuel, which is injected into the hot air after compression. In order to create the high temperatures needed to ignite diesel fuel, diesel engines have much higher compression ratios than

gasoline engines. Because diesel fuel is made of larger molecules than gasoline, burning diesel fuel produces more energy than burning the same volume of gasoline. The higher compression ratio in a diesel engine and the higher energy content of diesel fuel allow diesel engines to be more efficient than gasoline engines.

EXHAUST GAS RECIRCULATION

Exhaust Gas Recirculation is an efficient method to reduce NOx emissions from the engine. It works by recirculating a quantity of exhaust gas back to the engine cylinders. Intermixing the recirculated gas with incoming air reduces the amount of available O2 to the combustion and lowers the peak temperature of combustion. Recirculation is usually achieved by piping a route from the exhaust manifold to the intake manifold. A control valve within the circuit regulates and times the gas flow.

Uses of Exhaust Gas Recirculation

First, exhaust gas recirculation reduces the concentration of oxygen in the fuel-air mixture. By replacing some of the oxygen-rich inlet air with relatively oxygen-poor exhaust gas, there is less oxygen available for the combustion reaction to proceed. Since the rate of a reaction is always dependent to some degree on the concentration of its reactants in the pre- reaction mix, the NOx-producing reactions proceed more slowly, which means that less NOx is formed.

In addition, since there is less oxygen available, the engine must be adjusted to inject less fuel before each power stroke. Since we are now burning less fuel, there is less heat available to heat the fluids taking place in the reaction. The combustion reaction therefore occurs at lower temperature. Since the temperature is lower, and since the rate of the NOx-forming reaction is lower at lower temperatures, less NOx is formed.

CONCLUSION

Thus, as seen that using Exhaust Gas Recirculation Technique in engines, the emissions are vary much controlled due to lesser amounts of NOx entering the atmosphere. Thus the emission levels to be maintained are attained by the engines. As seen, Exhaust Gas Recirculation is a very simple method. It has proven to be very useful and it is being modified further to attain better standards. This method is very reliable in terms of fuel consumption and highly reliable. Thus EGR is the most effective method for reducing the nitrous oxide emissions from the engine exhaust. Many of the four wheeler manufacturers used this technique like Ford Company, Benz Motors etc to improve the engine performance and reduce the amount of pollutants in the exhaust of the engine.