Comparative experimental study on performance and emission characteristics of ethanol–diesel blends fuelled semi-adiabatic diesel engine

Abstract

The cost and demand for the fossil fuel are increasing everyday. Ethanol has drawn researcher’s attention due to its renewable nature. In this investigation, the copper crown surface was insulated from the aluminium piston body with a 3 mm gap. Air has low thermal conductivity and is utilised as the protecting medium. Commercially available anhydrous ethanol with a purity of 99.7% is used for blending with diesel. Oxygenated two fuel blends consisting of ethanol and diesel in the ratio of 15:85 and 30:70 are used in conventional engine (CE) and semi-adiabatic engine (SE). During this investigation, load ranging from 0% (no load) to 100% is varied. At maximum load, E30 blend in SE shown 5.24% increase in BTE and brought down CO, NO_x, HC and Smoke emissions by 17.9%, 12.8%, 13.5% and 12.9%, respectively, compared to CE with diesel. In this paper, acetaldehyde emissions were analysed at maximum load.

KEYWORDS:

• Ethanol blends
• loads
• emission
• semi-adiabatic engine
• combustion temperature

Acknowledgements

The authors wish to convey thanks to the lab faculty, principal and management of INTEL College of Engineering, Anantapuramu, for providing us required facility to carry out this research work. And also appreciations are extended to Department of Mechanical Engineering, Pondicherry Engineering College, Puducherry.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).