Introduction.
A combustion engine can be defined as any engine that operates through fuel burning. The difference between a combustion engine and steam engine is that the latter uses steam for operation while the former uses gasoline. Combustion engines also use fueled gases such as hydrogen, propane, methane etc which are components of diesel. Combustion engines run on one type of fuel, and may require a series of adaptation to adjust to fuel/air ratio to use other forms of energy (Agrawal, 2006).
The combustion process starts in the gasoline cylinder where a mixture of air and gasoline is sprayed. The mixture is compressed by a piston, and at an optimal point in the compression stroke, the spark plug creates an electrical ignition that lights up the fuel. This combustion leads to generation of heat inducing pressure to the hot gases inside the cylinder. This pressure impacts more on the gases than on the fuel-air mixture (Gupta, 2006). The differences in pressure lead to driving back of the piston, and this marks the first stroke. The second stroke is marked by a reintroduction of the fuel-air mixture to the cylinder. This leads to linear motion directed outwards of the piston. The piston is connected by a crankshaft, which leads to production of a circular motion. The intake of fuel-air mixture is controlled by valves, which allow the exhaust gases to exit (Abbasi and Abbasi, 2011).
The commonly used strokes in internal combustion are the two-stroke and four-stroke internal combustions. The four-stroke combustion engine is used in industrial purposes and automotives like cars and generators. It is more efficient as compared to the two-stroke combustion engine, but also requires manufacturing expertise.
Environmental impacts of Engine combustion.
Engine combustion is a chemical initiated process that involves formations of compounds that are either released into air, water or land, leading to environmental degradation. Some of the hazardous compounds emitted by the process include smoke, hydrocarbons, Nitrogen Oxide, and Redox. All these compounds affect the environment, and human health, in one way or another. Gasoline and diesel fuels used in the process are mixtures of carbon compounds known as Hydrocarbons. Air compounds like oxygen combined with Hydrogen and Carbon, found in Hydrocarbons, form compounds of carbon dioxide and water. The most observable impacts of combustion include air, climate, noise, water, biodiversity, land and soil, and are discussed below (Sher, 1998).
Air quality.
Combustion involves use and emission of gases into the air that contributes to atmospheric pollution. Such gases include Carbon monoxide, nitrogen dioxide, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, among others. From a local perspective each of these gases affects the atmosphere as well as health of individuals. Carbon monoxide reduces the availability of oxygen in air, and this has adverse effects on human health. Nitrogen dioxide is associated with lung malfunctions, and effects on respiratory systems.
Climatic change.
The whole combustion process is a threat to weather and climatic conditions (Sher, 1998). During the process, millions of tons of harmful gases such as Methane, Nitrogen oxides, sulfur dioxide, per fluorocarbons, Chlorofluorocarbons, silicon tetraflourides, among others are released into the atmosphere. These gases have massive impacts on the stratosphere, and this leads to exposure of the troposphere to heat. This exposes the Ozone layer, which screens or covers the earth’s surface from ultraviolent radiations.
The depletion of Ozone layer leads to increased temperatures on earth’s surface, and this contributes to climatic changes and global warming (Demidov and Bonnet, 2009). Global warming leads to the melting of glaciers. The melted glacier flows into waters such as oceans leading to rise in sea levels. This in turn leads to calamities such as hurricanes that destroys land, property, and takes away lives.
Water quality.
The combustion process has an enormous impact on hydrological conditions. Chemicals, fuels and hazardous particulates from cars, trains, aircrafts, or from aircraft and port terminals, contaminate rivers, lakes, oceans etc. the key water degraders include waste, oil spills, dredging, and ballast water. Such wastes modify the hydrology by turbidity creation that affects hydro biological diversity (Ploutz, 2012).
For instance, contaminated water, and sediments from dredging lead to bacteria growth, which are hazardous to human health as well as aquatic life. Besides, various garbage types released into water are non biodegradable. Persistence disposal of such waste implies that maritime navigation may be affected. In addition, ballast waters released into water, contains massive amounts of aquatic species that when discharged into other regions disrupt marine transportation.
Oil spillage into water, from marine transport activities, is harmful to both human intakes an aquatic life. Such spillages cover oxygen thereby reducing its intake by aquatic life. In addition, human consumption of such water, no matter the amounts of treatment process, contains harmful compounds that affects the digestive system, or leads to growth of bacteria in human system. From a regional and global perspective, oil spillages in ocean water reduce the evaporation process leading to global shortages in rain. This affects agricultural production, and other human activities that involve water consumption.
Biodiversity and land take.
Transportation and engine combustion influence on landscape as well as natural vegetation. Development of airport and port infrastructure, elevated train rails, highways etc, lead to social and economic cohesion. The search for construction material has contributed to deforestation (Ploutz, 2012). Transportation routes require draining land, and this reduces wetland areas. The need to maintain rails and roads has led to banning of growth of some plant species, and introduction of new plant species. Many species of animals are becoming extinct after consumption of such vegetation.
Noise.
Combustion process involves generation of chaotic and irregular noise. Take an instance of noise produced in quarries while mining; such noise is disturbs hearing, and affects human psychological and physical wellbeing. Transport noise that emanates from moving water also increases cardiovascular diseases (McKinney, Schoch and Yonavjak, L. (2012).
Technical solutions to reduce impacts.
Traffic planning and management has been considered an option to reduce the impacts of internal combustion to the environment. This involves handling of traffic in an efficient way such that congestion is eliminated (Abbasi and Abbasi, 2011). It also involves keeping traffic away to environmentally sensitive locations such as scarcely populated areas, and away from urban centers. The intention of traffic planning is to reduce the amounts of fuel consumed in traffics. However, traffic management and planning policies have a traffic generating effect, which offsets the benefits of reduced emissions to efficient traffic handling.
The catalyst converter uses reduction and oxidation processes to convert toxic emissions to gases that are not harmful to the environment. It contains of metal covers with ceramic honeycomb insulating layers that are coated with aluminum oxide. The honeycomb is porous increasing the reaction surface area, and increased reactions. It contains metals such as platinum, palladium and rhodium, which boost the transfer of electrons leading to a conversion of the toxic fumes. A catalyst converter converts around 98% of hazardous emissions produced by car engines (Guzzella and Onder, 2010). However, the catalyst converter has not been considered as the best prevention system since during the conversion process carbon dioxide is produced. Moreover, the catalytic converter does not operate until heated up, and this may take a distance of two to five kilometers. However, the effects of carbon dioxide are not as adverse, to the environment as hydrocarbons and carbon monoxide.
Another technicality would be use of alternative fuels like liquid petroleum gas (LPG) and compressed natural gas (CNG) (Gupta, 2006). These fuels facilitate the process with a reduced amount of carbon dioxide emission. However, they tend to be slower on the process as compared to gasoline. Use of supplements such as hydrogen fuels may also reduce the effect of gasoline in environment. Renewable sources such as electricity could also complement the combustion process. However, the use of such technology is capital intensive and expensive (McKinney, Schoch and Yonavjak, L. (2012).
The solution to the whole problem lies on energy substitution from the use of gasoline to environmental friendly fuel (Agrawal, 2006). Harnessing of renewable sources of energy such as wind and solar, could be the key to solving the problem. The problem with using such energy sources is on their cost and limitation in supply. As much as this is expensive, it guarantees safety to the environment through reductions in emissions of the harmful gases. In addition, production of this energy is environmental friendly as it not chemically initiated. The sources of this energy are natural and readily available for use.
Conclusion and Recommendation.
Transportation and engine combustion has a wide array of environmental externalities, some of which are speculative while others can be assessed reasonably. These externalities occur at a variety of geographical scales while some even overlap other. The key issue of address is their effect on Ozone layer, global warming and climate change. This remains a global issue that requires a fast and sustainable solution. Human activity has been associated with environmental degradation, production and use of engine being one of them. As much as these activities make life worthwhile, their long-term effects offset their short term benefit. However much governments may try to implement the use of environmental friendly combustion engines, man has the final solution to the problem. This is through campaigning on limited use of gasoline and other fossil fuels that lead to environmental degradation. The process may seem difficult, and with so many shortcomings, but it is the only sustainable solution to effects of engine combustion to the environment.
Reference.
Abbasi, T., & Abbasi, S. A. (2011). Renewable energy sources: Their impact on global warming and pollution. New Delhi: PHI.Top of Form
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Agrawal, S. K. (2006). Internal combustion engines. New Delhi: New Age International (P) Ltd. Publishers.
Demidov, S., & Bonnet, J. (2009). Traffic related air pollution and internal combustion engines. New York: Nova Science Publishers.
Gupta, H. N. (2006). Fundamentals of internal combustion engines. New Delhi: Prentice Hall of India.
Guzzella, L., & Onder, C. H. (2010). Introduction to modeling and control of internal combustion engine systems. Berlin: Springer.
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Johansen, B. E. (n.d.). The encyclopedia of global warming science and technology. Santa Barbara, Calif. [u.a.: Greenwood Press.
McKinney, M. L., Schoch, R. M., & Yonavjak, L. (2012). Environmental science: Systems and solutions. Boston: Jones and Barlett Publishers.
Ploutz, P. (2012). Global warming: Handbook of ecological issues. S.l.: Xlibris Corp.
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Sher, E. (1998). Handbook of air pollution from internal combustion engines: Pollutant formation and control. Boston: Academic Press. Bottom of ForTop of Form
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