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In order to avoid the food vs. fuel debate, other than food-based products, agricultural products are effective sources for fuel development. Various parts of plants and trees are used to produce sustainable, low-viscous biofuels, which are gaining much attraction due to their superior burning abilities. The turpentine biofuel produced from pine tree oil has been used for gasoline engines because of its better calorific value and other notable benefits. An attempt has been made to investigate the suitability of turpentine biofuel as a 50% replacement for gasoline in automotive applications to identify the optimum blend ratio. In this study, the experiments are conducted in the port-fuel-injected gasoline engine at different loading conditions of 0 kg to 15 kg at 1800 rpm. Using turpentine blends in a port-fuel-injected SI engine, performance characteristics have been observed with up to a 3–5% improvement in brake thermal efficiency and fuel economy for all concentrations of turpentine biofuel due to their higher calorific value. However, the implementation of turpentine biofuel has shown remarkable reductions in unburnt hydrocarbons by 50% and carbon monoxide emissions by 90% due to its superior burning ability. However, this reduction is not witnessed in oxides of nitrogen and carbon dioxide emissions due to the lower octane number and higher viscosity, which result in a 30% and 5% increase, respectively. Interestingly, the combustion characteristics are observed to be better at part load operations for lower concentrations (30%) of turpentine biofuel in the blends, and this trend has not been noticed at higher concentrations of turpentine biofuel. Finally, it has been concluded that turpentine biofuel would be a better option for the partial replacement of gasoline by up to 30%. However, for further investigation, the anti-knocking characteristics of the turpentine biofuel need to be improved, especially in 40% and 50% turpentine biofuel blends using suitable anti-knocking agents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The use of fluidization assistance can greatly enhance the fluidization hydrodynamics of powders that exhibit poor fluidization behavior. Compared to other assistance techniques, pulsed flow assistance is a promising technique for improving conventional fluidization because of its energy efficiency and ease of process implementation. However, the inlet flow configuration of pulsed flow can significantly affect the bed hydrodynamics. In this study, the conventional single drainage (SD) flow strategy was modified to purge the primary flow during the non-flow period of the pulse to eliminate pressure buildup in the inlet flow line while providing a second drainage path to the residual gas. The bed dynamics for both cases, namely, single drainage (SD) and modified double drainage (MDD), were carefully monitored by recording the overall and local pressure drop transients in different bed regions at two widely different pulsation frequencies of 0.05 and 0.25 Hz. The MDD strategy led to substantially faster bed dynamics and greater frictional pressure drop in lower bed regions with significantly mitigated segregation behavior. The spectral analysis of the local and global pressure transient data in the frequency domain revealed a pronounced difference between the two flow strategies. The application of the MDD inlet flow strategy eliminated the disturbances from the pulsed fluidized bed irrespective of the pulsation frequency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main purpose of this study is to model and measure the impact of development and non-development expenditure on the carbon dioxide emissions (per capita metric tons) in India over 1980–2018. The Asymmetric ARDL approach (NARDL), an advanced econometric technique, was applied to examine the nexus between CO2 emissions, development and non-development expenditure, national income, energy consumption and population. The short-run and long-run results establish a statistically significant relationship between carbon emissions and the explanatory variables. The long-run asymmetrical results indicate that energy consumption and national income growth pollute the environment. However, we did not find any significant long-run impact of population on pollution levels in India. Furthermore, the results reveal that increase in development expenditure leads to environmental degradation and non-development expenditure mitigates pollution. No evidence of the applicability of EKC was found in India. The authors conclude that a reasonable method of tackling the threat of environmental degradation is to remove distortions in public expenditure policy. We recommend the government to phase out fiscal benefits to pollution-prone economic activities and thus spend the money saved on pollution abatement efforts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study investigates the long-run impact of financial development, energy consumption and economic growth on greenhouse gas emissions for India, in the presence of endogenous structural breaks, over the period 1971–2013. The autoregressive distributed lag bounds testing procedure (ARDL) and Hatemi-J threshold cointegration technique were used to test the variables for cointegration. ARDL bounds test did not confirm any cointegrating relationship between the variables. The threshold cointegration test establishes the presence of long-run impact of financial development, energy use and economic growth on greenhouse gas emissions in India. The results reveal that the long-run relationship between the variables has witnessed two regime shifts, in 1978 and 2002. The empirical evidence shows that financial sector development and energy consumption in India degrade the environment. Unlike previous studies, this paper finds no statistical evidence of a long-run relationship between economic growth and environmental deterioration. The study also challenges the existence of an environmental Kuznets curve in India. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Increasing discharge of saline wastewater (SWW) from different industries and environmental risks associated with it has compelled researchers to search for efficient treatment methods and safe disposal techniques. Unfortunately, several industries such as agro-food, oil & gas, tannery, and pulp & paper require brine solution units to obtain a finished product that further elevates the salinity of discharged wastewater to a magnitude of 1-3% by weight of NaCl. Among the conventional treatment procedures, electrochemical technologies proved to be more efficient, robust and cost-effective. Electrocoagulation (EC), an electrochemical based technology that produces in situ coagulant which ultimately assist in pollutant removal. It is even more suitable for the treatment of saline water as salinity increases conductivity which further enhances the EC process efficiency. However, the elevated anodic dissolution may increase the cost which can be reduced by using scrap metals as sacrificial electrodes out of iron and aluminum. The mechanism of salt removal from SWW using EC is similar to other pollutant removal mechanisms as salt species being coagulated by the metal hydroxides and are further removed as sludge. However, optimization of process parameters in EC is essential to maintain a balance between anodic passivation and higher metal dissolution so as to make the process efficient. This review paper highlights the theory of the EC technology, process parameters, potential application and recent developments of EC for the treatment of various types of SWW as well as economical assessment associated with this technology. Most of the recent research concerning EC for SWW treatment has been concentrated on the pollutant-specific evaluation without paying special attention to the process optimization, process modeling and commercial usage. This review further outlines the challenges with the recommendations for encouraging research options that can potentially enhance the EC performance, lower the operational costs and expand its range of applications for SWW treatment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Heterogeneous reusable catalyst developed from waste of Bull bones in the meat shops. • Tested with fuel generation from waste cooking oil by transesterification and yield 94.8% • Influence of DEE and Ethanol additives studies and suggested B20 + 5 wt% Methanol. • CR and Fuel blend optimized with mean performance of IP, BP, ITE, BTE, ME and SFC. • Emission performance of fuels at different load were analyzed at optimized CR setting. Fast-growing fuel demand by an increase in diesel vehicles and diesel engine applications for various sectors motivates researchers to develop alternate fuels. Though many approaches have been proposed, this investigation is unique by producing alternate fuels from the waste cooking oil (WCO) using a biodegradable, reusable, easy-to-handle, eco-friendly, and heterogeneous catalyst developed to form the waste bull bone and characterized for alternate fuel production from WCO. The zero-waste approach, eco-friendly fuel blends, and low-cost production factors were considered. The preprocessing of WCO was carried out by the bubble washes method, followed by transesterification processing for producing biofuel. The fuel blends were tested with different ratios like 20% to 80% with diesel and short out B20 grade. Further, the blends were prepared with Diethyl ether (DEE) and Ethanol. Total eight fuels (Diesel, B20, B20 + 5 wt% DEE, B20 + 10 wt% DEE, B20 + 5 wt% Ethanol, B20 + 10 wt% Ethanol, B20 + 5 wt% Methanol, and B20 + 10 wt% Methanol) were tested including pure diesel from No load to full load engine condition at two different compression ratios (15:1 & 18:1). The results reveal that B20 + 5 wt% Methanol at 15:1 compression ratio outperformed in terms of brake power of 2.64 kW, indicated power of 6.35 kW, brake thermal efficiency of 33.21%, Indicated thermal efficiency of 67.18%, mechanical efficiency of 59.14%, low brake specific fuel consumption of 0.27 kg/kWh at full load. In conclusion, the heterogeneous catalyst obtained from the waste bull bone can be used in biodiesel production, which ensures the efficient usability of the waste bull bone in the fuel-processing sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]