Impact of Dme-Diesel Fuel Blend Properties on Diesel Fuel Injection Systems

Abstract

The objectives of this research program are to develop information on lubricity and viscosity improvers and their impact on the wear mechanisms in fuel injectors operating on blends of dimethyl ether (DME) and diesel fuel. Since DME is a fuel with no lubricity (i.e., it does not possess the lubricating quality of diesel fuel), conventional fuel delivery and fuel injection systems are not compatible with dimethyl ether. Therefore, to operate a diesel engine on DME one must develop a fuel-tolerant injection system, or find a way to provide the necessary lubricity to the DME. In the shuttle bus project, we have chosen the latter strategy in order to achieve the objective with minimal need to modify the engine. Our strategy is to blend DME with diesel fuel, to obtain the necessary lubricity to protect the fuel injection system and to achieve low emissions. In this project, we have sought to develop methods for extending the permissible DME content in the DME-diesel blends without experiencing rapid injector failure due to wear.Our activities have covered three areas: examination of the impact of lubricity additives on the viscosity of DME, development of a high-pressure lubricity test apparatus for studies of lubricity and viscosity improvers and development of an injector durability stand for evaluation of wear rates in fuel injectors. The first two of these areas have resulted in valuable information about the limitations of lubricity and viscosity additives that are presently available in terms of their impact on the viscosity of DME and on wear rates on injector hardware. The third area, that of development of an injector durability test stand, has not resulted in a functioning experiment. Some information is provided in this report to identify the remaining tasks that need to be performed to make the injector stand operational.The key observations from the work are that when blended at 25 wt.% in either diesel fuel or Biodiesel fuel, DME requires more than 5 wt.% additive of all viscosity and lubricity additives tested here to even approach the lower limit of the ASTM diesel fuel viscosity requirement. To treat neat DME sufficiently to make DME comply with the ASTM diesel fuel viscosity requirement would require a viscosity additive with 10 45 cSt viscosity, which is not possible with current additive technologies. iv