In this review a brief description is given for the biofuel cells along with their classification. The review is mainly intended to concentrate on microbial fuel cells (MFCs) where micro-organisms are used to convert the fuel to electrical energy and also this review gives an overview of the advances made in the past two years in MFCs in terms of their research, development and performance. Som...

The objective of the work was investigation of possibility of dual fuelling of CI engine with diesel fuel and ethyl alcohol in order to decrease engine emission and increase its thermal efficiency. Alcohol, which is injected to the engine inlet port evaporates quickly, but doesn't ignite (due to low cetane number). After self-ignition of diesel fuel, ignited alcohol would promote further burnin...

A tailored model for the assessment of environmental benefits achievable by light-weighting design solutions in the automotive field is presented. The model is based on the Fuel Reduction Value (FRV) coefficient which expresses the Fuel Consumption (FC) saving involved by a 100 kg vehicle mass reduction. The work is composed by two main sections: simulation and environmental modelling. Simulati...

The effect of the thickness of ceramic membrane on the productivity of microbial fuel cells (MFCs) was investigated with respect to the electricity generation and domestic wastewater treatment efficiencies. The thickest ceramic membrane (9 mm) gained the highest coulombic efficiency (27.58±4.2 %), voltage (681.15±33.1 mV), and current and power densities (447.11±21.37 mA/m2, 63.82±10.42 mW/m2) ...

Renewable energy is an increasing need in our society. Microbial fuel cells (MFCs) represent a new method for treating wastewater and simultaneously producing electricity. In the present study, we demonstrated the feasibility of bioelectricity generation from brewery wastewater treatment using a mediator less MFC at different pH. We also demonstrated that addition of readily utilizable substrat...

Landfill leachate emerges as a promising feedstock for microbial fuel cells (MFCs). In the present investigation, direct airbreathing cathode-based MFCs are fabricated to investigate the potential of landfill leachate. Three MFCs that have different cathode areas are fabricated and investigated for 17 days under open circuit conditions. The maximum open circuit voltage (OCV) is observed to be a...

The purpose of this study is to determine the optimum intake valve closing time of a large diesel engine having lower fuel consumption and lower NOx emission. The performance simulation has been conducted for this purpose, and a phenomenological combustion model is verified by experimental data of heat release rate and NOx emission in order to enhance the prediction quality of the performance s...

We present an industrial case study in automotive control of significant complexity: the new common rail fuel injection system for Diesel engines, currently under production by Magneti Marelli Powertrain. In this system, a flow–rate valve, introduced before the High Pressure (HP) pump, regulates the fuel flow that supplies the common rail according to the engine operating point. The standard ap...