Feasibility Studies on Two Different Analytical Techniques of Measuring Soot Emissions from a Power Generating Set

This research focused on developing simple, reliable and cost-effective methods for the determination of the amount of soot being emitted daily in to the atmosphere from the combustion of fossil fuels. This was with the view of monitoring the level of environmental pollution or the impact assessment of soot emission on the environment. Two novel methods, A and B; based on the principle of adsorption on paper and liquid, both from a timed-running diesel and petrol-powered generating sets were used respectively. The difference in the weight of the adsorbed paper was expressed as the weight of the emitted soot. The results obtained showed that between 1-5 hours, the amount of soot ranged from 1.7587±0.1425 to 3.2260±0.1231g for method A and from 0.1342±0.0606 to 0.5822±0.0322g for method B respectively. Though the mass of soot in method B was generally found to be much lower than that in method A, method B may not be said to be ineffective because gasoline, the fuel on which method B generator was run, produces less black carbon or soot as compared to a diesel engine of method A obviously because of the lesser number of hydrocarbon chains in premium motor spirit as compared to automotive gas oil. On the whole, the results obtained from both methods were not only highly significant but were also cheap, simple and would encourage further method development.