Effect of In-cylinder Catalysts and Turbulence Chamber Spark Plug on a Two-Stroke Engine

This paper is concerned with means for reducing the exhaust emissions and improving the performance of a two-stroke SI engine, by utilizing the principle of catalytic coating and turbulence chamber sparkplug. A single cylinder air-cooled two-stroke SI engine was selected as the base engine and the experiments were conducted at part load conditions. The standard engine was modified to run with turbulence chamber sparkplug and with catalytic coating. The various catalysts selected were copper oxide (CuO), chromium oxide (Cr₂O₃) and combination of copper oxide and cerium oxide (CuO+CeO₂). A number of Iternative configurations, employing different materials and shapes were also tried for optimizing the turbulence chamber design. Experimental results obtained from catalytic coated and turbulence chamber sparkplug equipped engine were compared with base line data. The results indicate improved fuel economy for catalytic coated engine and reduced emission levels for turbulence chamber sparkplug equipped engine, hence a combination of both was also tried. The results obtained evokes that combination of catalytic coating and turbulence chamber sparkplug is the optimum arrangement if both higher efficiency and lower emissions are desired.