Open Access

ARTICLE

Tests and Refinement of a Mini-Power Plant with a Piston Engine Powered by Propane-Butane Blend and Syngas

Leonid Plotnikov^1,*, Leonid Osipov¹, Danil Davydov¹, Dmitry Krasilnikov¹, Alexander Ryzhkov²
1 Turbines and Engines Department, Ural Federal University Named after the First President of Russia B. N. Yeltsin, Yekaterinburg, Russia
2 New Energy Technologies Laboratory, Ural Federal University Named after the First President of Russia B. N. Yeltsin, Yekaterinburg, Russia
* Corresponding Author: Leonid Plotnikov. Email:
(This article belongs to the Special Issue: Thermal Engineering Technology Innovation and Sustainable Development)

Energy Engineering https://doi.org/10.32604/ee.2026.076278

Received 18 November 2025; Accepted 12 January 2026; Published online 21 January 2026

Abstract

The use of alternative fuels to generate mechanical and thermal energy in engines is a promising and sought-after technological area with its own unique advantages and characteristics. Consequently, enhancing the technical, economic, and environmental efficiency of gas engines fueled by propane-butane mixture and syngas through optimized operating cycle parameters (including valve timing, ignition timing angle, fuel mixture composition, and compression ratio) is a pressing imperative for scientific and energy sectors. The aim of the study was to investigate and compare the performance of an engine with different compression ratios running on a propane-butane mixture and laboratory syngas. The research’s primary originality lies in its joint study of syngas production technology and the evaluation of the efficiency of a mini power plant fueled by the resulting gas and conventional gas. This article presents a description of the experimental setup, data on measuring instruments, technical characteristics of the mini-power plant, the process for obtaining laboratory syngas, the properties of the gaseous fuels used, and experimental methods. Data on air and fuel consumption, as well as engine efficiency at different compression ratios when running on a propane-butane mixture and syngas, were obtained and analyzed. Converting an engine from a propane-butane mixture to syngas results in a reduction in power of almost 30% and efficiency by 13%–33%. Increasing the compression ratio by 0.9 units causes a rise in maximum efficiency from 0.177 to 0.235 for an engine running on a propane-butane mixture and an increase in maximum efficiency from 0.136 to 0.161 for a syngas engine. It has been confirmed that the compression ratio significantly impacts the technical and economic performance of an engine running on gaseous fuel. The obtained results can be used to modernize existing engines for operation on alternative fuels (syngas) and to design new mini-power plants with promising technical, economic, and environmental characteristics.

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Keywords

Mini-power plant; piston engine; syngas production; propane-butane mixture; syngas; engine testing; operating cycle fine-tuning; power and efficiency

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