Combined influence of n-butanol and ethyl hexyl nitrate on engine characteristics of the plastic oil-diesel blend fueled CI engine

Abstract

Waste plastics collected over several years slowly rot in land fills and show a significant threat to the atmosphere. Through catalytic pyrolysis, hydrocarbons contained in the waste plastics may probably be transformed into plastic oil. Recycled waste plastic oil (WPO) used in CI engines provides a suitable remedy for waste plastic management. But inclusion of alcohol in WPO-Diesel blend increases the NOx emission. A four-stroke single-cylinder CI engine was used to conduct emission and performance testing. When compared to Diesel-WPO blend, results indicated that n-butanol mixing emitted lower emissions of HC, CO, smoke and higher NOx emission. The mixture of n-butanol in the fuel blend improved the brake thermal efficiency and decreased specific fuel consumption compared to the blend of WPO-diesel. The inclusion of EHN to the Diesel-WPO-n-butanol ternary blends lowered the emission of NOx up to 24%, but slightly increased the emission of CO up to 6.4%, HC up to 6.6% and smoke up to 8.7%, although the values are still lower than WPO-diesel blends. The usage of EHN in ternary fuel blends increased brake thermal efficiency (BTE) up to 1.6%. Therefore, the inclusion of oxygenated alcohol and cetane improver to WPO-diesel blend is efficient for a engine.

Keywords:

• diesel engine
• emissions
• ethyl hexyl nitrate
• n-butanol
• performance
• waste plastic oil

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

The authors acknowledge that there are no external funding/grants received for this research work.