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India's natural gas consumption reached 60.3 billion cubic meters (BCM) in the year 2022-23, with imports accounting for 44.2% of the total consumption. As India targets 15% of primary energy consumption from gas by 2030, the demand for natural gas is expected to grow significantly. In this context, CBG (bio-CNG) which can reduce dependence on imported natural gas, has emerged as a viable alternative to CNG. The government's SATAT (Sustainable Alternative Towards Affordable Transportation) initiative encourages entrepreneurs to establish CBG plants and supply CBG to Oil Marketing Companies (OMCs) for use as automotive and industrial fuels. As of June 2023, 50 CBG plants have been set up, and 128 retail outlets in India are selling CBG as a transportation fuel. The quality requirements of CBG are governed by IS 16087, aligning with the specifications for automotive CNG defined in IS 15958.

Many countries are developing strategies to curb the consumption of fossil fuels, and to increase the share of alternative fuels such as alcohols, natural gas, fuel cell and electricity in the energy pool in order to improve energy security and reduce atmospheric pollution. Alcohol fuels are promising one and it has been widely used in many countries as blending component for gasoline. Ethanol has a high-octane number but it has a lower calorific value than gasoline. The performance of engine may be affected with higher percentage of ethanol in gasoline due to demand for larger quantity of fuel that could not be supplied by vehicles which are tuned to run on gasoline only. In this study, a second electronic control unit (ECU) was installed in series with the existing commercial or primary ECU and an ethanol sensor was installed in the fuel line. This secondary ECU modulates the fuel injection pulse width of the primary ECU depending on ethanol concentration in the fuel.

In India, , as per mandate of hon'ble Supreme Court of India for reduction of emission due to vehicles, compressed natural gas (CNG) powered city buses and passengers cars are in use since 2000. Their usage is limited to metropolitan cities like Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore etc. due to limitation of CNG storage and dispensing infrastructure along with low energy density storage. High energy density liquid form of natural gas storage (LNG) can overcome these difficulties and promising in near future. Simultaneously, there is a need for development of efficient fuel storage system, fuel supply system, engine optimization & calibration, engine lubricant etc. suitable for implementation of LNG for automotive application. In this background, the present work is aimed at the framework of engine testing facility, development of dedicated lubricant and performance of the engine for LNG application.

This study investigated the exhaust particle and unregulated emissions emanating from a heavy duty six-cylinder natural gas engine with CNG and HCNG fuels. Experiments were performed at different speeds (1000, 1500, 2000 and 2500 rpm) and load conditions (30%, 50%, 75% and 100%). Exhaust gas samples at each speed-load combination were analyzed for particle number concentration and particle size distribution using engine exhaust particle sizing spectrometer. Unregulated emissions were also measured using FTIR (Fourier Transform Infrared) analyzer. The results indicated that particle number (PN) concentration in exhaust is comparatively lower with HCNG fuel than CNG and it increases with increase in engine speed-load. At higher speed-load condition, engine emits high nucleation mode particles (NMP) and ultrafine particles (UFP). Total PN concentration in the NMP range is comparatively higher than UFP and accumulated mode particles (AMP) for both the test fuels.