Microscopic study of EPS-infused biodiesel with DEE and its performance and emissions in a diesel engine

Abstract

The main objective of this study is to investigate some important fuel properties of expanded polystyrene (EPS)-infused biodiesel blends without and with the addition of a certain percentage of diethyl ether (DEE), a cetane number (CN) enhancer. The originality of this study is the use of high-CN DEE as an additive for EPS-infused canola biodiesel to investigate a diesel engine’s performance and emissions. Furthermore, we performed a microscopic study (of structure and particle size distribution) of EPS-infused canola biodiesel blends without and with DEE as an additive. Biodiesel is an effective solvent for EPS. EPS-infused biodiesel can be used in diesel engines for power production, and it can be a supplementary energy source for IC engines. This study investigates the EPS-infused biodiesel blend performance and emission in a direct injection (DI) diesel engine at low, medium, and high loads, each at 1000, 2100, and 3000 rpm. The EPS was dissolved in biodiesel at varying concentrations (2, 6, and 10 g/L) at room temperature (25 °C). The results for different EPS-infused biodiesel blends are compared with those of pure diesel and biodiesel, and EPS dissolution and performance improvements with DEE were achieved.

Keywords:

• EPS
• canola biodiesel
• DEE
• microscopic study
• diesel engine
• performance
• emissions

Acknowledgments

The authors thank Manpreet Singh Sidhu and Mohamed Errishi, former graduate students of the Mechanical Engineering Program at Lakehead University, for their help and support.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.