Experimental investigation of the impact ethanol-biodiesel-diesel blended fuels on combustion, emission, and performance of compression ignition diesel engine

Abstract

This research was directed to reduce the global diesel engine emissions and dependency on finite fossil fuel reserves. The ethanol was blended by weight ratio with commercial “B20” fuel (20% palm oil's biodiesel and 80% diesel) as B20E5 (95% B20 with 5% ethanol), B20E10 (90% B20 with 10% ethanol) and B20E20 (80% B20 with 20% ethanol). The results of the engine's performance, combustion, emission, and agglomerate particles size using blended fuels were compared with the results of based commercial B20 fuel. All fuel samples were tested on a four-cylinder direct injection diesel engine at a constant load of 140Nm with engine speeds of 1000RPM, 1500RPM and 2000RPM. When the engine speed increased, the brake-specific fuel consumption decreased, and the brake thermal efficiency increased. The B20E20 shows the highest brake-specific fuel consumption because of the low energy content of the fuel blend and the highest thermal efficiency because of a better combustion process. The ethanol-blended fuels show higher peaks of in-cylinder pressure and heat release rate than the base B20 fuel, with B20E20 as the highest. Ethanol blended fuels have significant advantages in particulate matters reduction, especially in idle engine speed. The blended fuels decreased soot and CO2 emissions and increased NOx emission. The agglomerate particles size distribution was analysed with 100 samples for each fuel by using Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) and Image J tools. The average agglomerate particle size of B20, B20E5, B20E10 and B20E20 are 0.253 µm, 0.245 µm, 0.225 µm and 0.187 µm, respectively. As conclusion, adding ethanol to diesel fuel provide strong advantages on soot reduction and higher engine efficiency due to the enrich of fuel oxygen.