“FABRICATION OF A CARBON CAPTURE

DEVICE USING ACTIVATED CHARCOAL

FILTER”

SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE

REQUIREMENT FOR THE AWARD OF THE DEGREE
OF

BACHELOR OF ENGINEERING
IN
MECHANICAL ENGINEERING

Submitted By
Reeshab Pratim Upamanaya (16/092)
Aditya Bishwakarma (16/123)
Vishal Vivek Saikia (16/128)

2016-2020
GAUHATI UNIVERSITY, GUWAHATI
ASSAM ENGINEERING COLLEGE, JALUKBARI
GUWAHATI-781013
2019-2020
 CERTIFICATE FROM MECHANICAL ENGINEERING DEPARTMENT

This is to certify that the project report entitled “Fabrication of a carbon capture device using
activated charcoal filter” submitted by the following students of 7 th Semester of Mechanical
Engineering 2019-20:
Reeshab Pratim Upamanya – 16/092
Aditya Biswakarma – 16/123
Vishal Vivek Saikia – 16/128
is a bona fide work carried out by them in partial fulfillment for the award of the degree of
Bachelor of Engineering in Mechanical Engineering under Gauhati University.

Dr. Ranjit Kumar Dutta Dr. Sudip Kumar Deb

HOD (Project Guide)
Professor
Mech. Engg. Department
Mech. Engg. Department

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 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

The success and final outcome of this project required a lot of guidance and assistance from
many people and we are extremely privileged to have got this all along the completion of our
project. All that we have done is only due to such supervision and assistance and we would not
forget to thank them. We would like to express our heartfelt gratitude to each and every person
connected with the completion of this project. Especially, we would like to thank god for his
eternal presence.
We are grateful to our guide Dr. Sudip Kumar Deb, Department of Mechanical Engineering,
Assam Engineering College, for guiding us throughout the course of our work and providing
significant input for the completion of our project.
Secondly, we would like to thank Dr. Ranjit Kumar Dutta, HOD, Department of Mechanical
Engineering, and Dr. Atul Bora, Principal, Assam Engineering College, Jalukbari, Guwahati-13,
for giving us the opportunity to carry out our research project work in this prestigious Institution.
We would also like to take this opportunity to thank our family and friends who provided us
continuous mental support which helped us in the completion of this project.

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 DECLARATION

We hereby declare that the project report entitled “Fabrication of a carbon capture device using
activated charcoal filter”, submitted to the Department of Mechanical Engineering, Assam
Engineering college in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the award of the degree of
Bachelor of Engineering in Mechanical Engineering is a record of original dissertation work
done by us under the guidance of Dr. Sudip Kumar Deb, Professor, Department of Mechanical
Engineering., Assam Engineering College.

We declare that we have included the descriptions of our work, and nothing has been
copied/replicated from other’s work. The facts, figures, analysis, results, claims etc. depicted in
our report are all related to our own work.

We further declare that the work reported in this project have not been submitted before this,
either in part or full, for the award of any other degree or diploma in this institute or any other
institute or university.

Roll No. Name Signature

16/092 Reeshab Pratim Upamanaya

16/123 Aditya Biswakarma

16/128 Vishal Vivek Saikia

Date:
Place:

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 ABSTRACT

Environmental pollution is an incurable disease. It can only be prevented- Barry Commoner

Air pollution has become a rising social concern worldwide in the backdrop of soaring air
pollution from industries and vehicles. Due to acute problems from traffic jams from increasing
vehicles on road, developing countries like India are facing several environmental threats. India
is on the brink of becoming a major manufacturer of passenger vehicles as its production
increased from 37,07,348 units in 2016 to 39,52,950 units in 2017. The country despite being the
fastest growing economy in the world has reached an alarming stage in terms of air pollution as
most of its cities are counted among cities with poorest air quality in the world. To counter
vehicular air pollution, the emission standards were imposed in India in the year 2000.
Vehicular exhaust are post combustion effects and are termed as Group I carcinogens and the
main components are carbon dioxide, nitrogen dioxide and water vapors. Nitrogen oxide is
considered harmless. Carbon dioxide is the maim output which in excess can effect respiratory
functions and followed by depression of central nervous system of living beings. Moreover
carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas and traps the heat coming from sun and causing global
warming.
Complete electrification of vehicle may require several decades and present world still relies on
fossil fuels whose combustion emits a large amount of soot. So in order to limit emission of
carbon into the atmosphere, a carbon capture and storage device can be designed which can be
retrofitted in exhaust pipes of both mobile and immobile IC Engines to capture the unburned
carbon particles. This carbon soot when treated with suitable resins, additives and solvent in right
proportions, ink is obtained. The current design focuses to capture soot from the exhaust pipes of
motor vehicles and latter can be fabricated for various industries by using the same mechanism
and simply modifying the design as required.
The device uses a carbon filter to capture the carbon soot from the exhaust gas emitted by the
engines. The design is compact retrofit which can be easily fixed or removed from tailpipe
whenever required.

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 LIST OF FIGURES

Figure No. Name of Figure Page No.

1 Pollution graph of India in 2018-19 1

2 List of most polluted cities in 2010-16 2
3 Mild steel 5
4 Activated charcoal filter 5
5 PVC Hose Pipe 5
6 Molecular structure of activated charcoal filter 7
7 Adsorption mechanism of gas molecules 10
8 CAD model of fabricated device 13
9 Rendered model of the CAD device 13
10 Fabricated carbon capture device 14
11 Test in old and new vehicles 15
12 Test in 2-stroke and 4-stroke vehicles 16
13 Test in diesel and petrol vehicles 17
14 Test in diesel powered generators 17
15 Water vapor from gasoline powered engine 18
16 Graphical representation of carbon captured from various engines 19
17 Load cell sensor 20
18 Testing of pressure exerted from the vehicle 21
19 Graphical Representation of pressure exerted from the vehicle 21
20 Testing of pressure exerted from the vehicle with the device being fixed 22
21 Graphical representation of pressure exerted from the vehicle 22
22 PM 2.5 Sensor-arduino circuit connection 23
23 Testing of PM 2.5 emitted from the vehicle 24
24 Graphical Representation of the PM 2.5 emitted from the vehicle 24
25 Testing of PM 2.5 emitted from the vehicle with the device being fixed 25
26 Graphical Representation of the PM 2.5 emitted from the vehicle 25
27 Different types of pigments 26

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 CONTENTS

Page No.
Certificate ii
Acknowledgement iii
Declaration iv
Abstract v
List of Figures vi

Chapter 1:
INTRODUCTION
1.1: Overview 1
1.2: Problem Statement 3
1.3: Objective 3
1.4: Carbon Capture 4
1.5: Materials Required 4
1.6: Activated Charcoal Filter 6
1.7: Limitations 7

Chapter 2:
LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1: Past Research 8

Chapter 3:
WORKING PRINCIPLE
3.1: Mechanism 10
3.1.1: Physical Adsorption or Physisorption 10
3.1.2: Chemical Adsorption or Chemisorption 11
3.2: Surface Area Calculations 12
3.3: Fabricated Model 13

Chapter 4:
TESTS AND EXPERIMENTS
4.1: Carbon captured from various engines within given time 15
4.1.1: Comparison of carbon captured from old and new vehicle 15
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 4.1.2: Comparison of carbon captured from two and four stroke engine 16
4.1.3: Comparison of carbon captured from gasoline and diesel engine
vehicle 16
4.1.4: Amount of carbon captured from diesel powered generator 17
4.2: Back Pressure Test 18
4.3: PM 2.5 Test 23

Chapter 5:
FORMATION OF INK
5.1: Ink Formation 26
5.2: Chemical Tests 28

Chapter 6:
COST ANALYSIS AND CHALLENGES FACED
6.1: Cost Analysis 29
6.2: Challenges Faced 30

Chapter 7:
FUTURE SCOPE AND CONCLUSION
7.1: Future Scope 31
7.2: Conclusion 31

REFERENCES 33

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