Biofuels Bring Together NYC Students from
Three Universities for a Diesel Engine Test
By Martin Nolan
Global warming, despite its divisive politics, grass roots efforts to help in the fight are bringing together people from around the world.
Matt Basinger, Ph.D. candidate at Columbia University, working with the Uganda NGO Pilgrim, is leading the way with the BELT project. BELT, for Biofuel Engine Longevity Test, has brought together three NYC universities to examine the long-term effects of running a diesel engine on biofuels. Each university, Columbia University, Manhattan College and The City College of New York (CCNY) are all researching a Lister diesel engine running for 500 hours on vegetable oil. Of course, they are university students, so not just any veggie oil will do; they've got to go for the worst – the school cafeteria.
“The whole project has been incredible and so diverse,” says Basinger, who has made several trips to Uganda, where an engine is in place at Pilgrim's campus; it serves as an educational tool to the students and is intended as a back up generator to provide lighting during brown outs. “The power sometimes goes out multiple times a week and occasionally for long periods, like seven or eight days. The kids have to study for their exams by candlelight.”
The vision is to also connect the engine to other devices in a multifunctional rural fuel platform ( www.mfrfp.com ). By changing the connect of the drive belt, the engine could mill grain, pump water, crush seeds as well as generate power. In Uganda, the hardy Jatropha plant, which needs very little rain fall, produces seeds that can be crushed to obtain oil to fuel the engine. Much of the system is then self-sustaining.
“We're not up and running in Uganda as it's tough to get parts because what you order may not be what you receive,” says Basinger, who like any engineer knows, applied engineering is never like the textbooks.
At the same time that is the attraction to students like Amir Nosrat of CCNY.
“Getting your hands dirty is what it is all about,” says Nosrat, a junior mechanical engineering major. “And there are certainly things at the ground level that you just don't expect; often things don't work like they're supposed to.”
Adds Yesid Agualimpia, a senior mechanical engineering major at CCNY, “And that's the challenge, that is why we're here to gain that experience as well as have fun with a diesel engine.”
The BELT project
Confined by space limitations at Columbia, Basinger and his Ph.D. advisor, Vijay Modi, proposed to open the research component to other engineering schools to buy an engine, run their own test and share the data.
At the introductory meeting in April 2007, Manhattan College was strongly represented with about 15 students; CCNY had only one but little by little has picked up steam, then got a critical mass of people, then space allocation and the engine arrived a few months ago. Manhattan jumped right in, the engine was quickly ordered and the students had started getting dirty with it by summer.
All three universities purchased a Lister CS 6/1 diesel engine whose design is from the 1930s, updated in the 1960s and continues to be a popular engine in Africa and India (and even Alaska). With no electrical system and a crank start, it is rated 6 HP (4.5 kW) at 650 rpm.
They are not only built for developing countries, they are built in developing countries; so, about 50 hours go into cleaning the engine and bringing the machine to operating conditions. Next, the engine is fastened to its frame and the concrete; all three labs have encountered troubles with vibrations. Columbia's issue was certainly the worst. Basinger explains, “We got a great room, set up for the exhaust, but it is located immediately below an optics lab. Their equipment shakes terribly when the engine is running. Without spending a lot of money, the two labs can't run tests at the same time.”
Meanwhile, students start designing the preheat system and get set up to take real-time data points. About 60 parameters are used, most are measured through 20 different sensors: fuel temperature, cooling water temperature, emissions gases and particulates, component wear just to name a few.
Naturally, a break in test on petroleum diesel is run first for about 50 hours. Many of the pieces are makeshift – all part of the fun. The fuel tank is a few tubes and barrel full of filtered veggie oil; the cooling system is a bit more sophisticated with its feedback loop of water but the same “primitive” components. As a result, making sure the preheater, cooling system, fuel line and all the sensors are operating is a feat in itself. Then the switch is made to biofuels with startup and an occasional cleaning of the system by running it on biodiesel. First a trial run of 50-100 hours to make the transition, and the team makes the big push forward to 500 hours. The first data sets on 500 hours are expected at the end of the summer 2008.
Pilgrim-Uganda
Pilgrim Uganda (www.pilgrim-uganda.org ) is a Christian Uganda not-for-profit organization that serves the people of eastern and northern Uganda. Born out of a response to the horrendous conditions observed by the founder Calvin Echodu in the internally displaced persons refugee (IDP) campus, Pilgrim provides medical and educational programs, emergency food, and resettlement and agricultural assistant to re-establish people in communities so as to be self-sustaining.
Pilgrim's Beach School opened its doors to 250 students in 2006 and is now home to 470 students from age 12-21, most are orphans and many former child soldiers. At the same time, trauma treatment is provided to students and adults who have suffered from the long drawn out war.
Developing Students into Engineers
What is being done in Uganda provides inspiration for the work done in NYC. The benefits can also touch home, as applying the theory to a hands-on project is the challenge students crave; at times formidable, Stephen Bosco '09, a mechanical engineering major, emphasizes that it takes “committed professional grade engineers.”
Amir Danesh, a senior mechanical engineering major at CCNY, showed his commitment by fishing out the gears and nuts from a lubrication tank. The oil level reached up to his bicep.
“I spent three hours in the bath trying to was the oil off, which turned green when it came into contact with water and truly stunk,” says Danesh.
Others have enjoyed branching out like Sergio Rodriguez, an electrical engineer with Con Ed earning a Master's Degree at Manhattan College, who feels although diesel engines and power generation are traditionally for mechanical engineers, “the goals are smart, achievable, and the multidimensional implications of positive results can really have an immediate impact on small communities throughout Africa, India, and the environment.”
Rodriguez adds that his level of commitment at times has had him in the lab until the wee hours of the night, although that was because he got locked in.
While some engineering students like Bosco have long had the need for speed with engines and motor sports, the project put new light on the energy field. Rodriguez and Thomas Redding (also at Con Ed and pursuing a master's in mechanical engineering at Manhattan College), both with lots of experience in energy, are excited about diesel engines and the broader scope of alternative fuels and energy sources.
Among all the students from all the schools there is a clear resonating theme, while it is all fun and great engineering, thoughts turn to Uganda, and as Redding said, “It is a unique opportunity to make a difference as an engineer to sustainability increase a people's quality of life.”
Martin Holan is a junior Mechanical Engineering major at The City College of New York. He is earning a second degree after 15 years in the accounting and finance industries. For the past year, he has worked in the cell migration lab building microchannels for brain cancer research under Dr. Maribel Vazquez. Last summer, he interned with the Cornell University Extension in NYC on a NYSERDA study on bio-fuels in NYC that examined the application of biodiesel blends in home-heating oil, maritime usage, back-up generators and on-site filming.
