Influence of Methanol–Biodiesel Blends on the Particulate Emissions of a Direct Injection Diesel Engine

Abstract

In this study, Euro V diesel fuel, biodiesel, and methanolbiodiesel blends were tested in a 4-cylinder direct-injection diesel engine to investigate the combustion characteristics and particulate emissions of the diesel engine under five engine loads at the maximum torque engine speed of 1800 rpm. Compared with Euro V diesel fuel, biodiesel gives lower and earlier heat release rate. For the blended fuels, the peak heat release rate becomes higher and retarded. With regard to particulate mass concentration, biodiesel generates less than Euro V diesel fuel, while the blended fuels result in significant reduction especially at high engine loads. Compare with Euro V diesel fuel, the total particle number concentration of using biodiesel is always higher while the geometric mean diameter (GMD) of the particles is lower. With the blended fuel, the total number concentration and GMD decrease in comparison with pure biodiesel. Further analysis shows that the difference between the total number concentration of biodiesel and Euro V diesel fuel is in particles smaller than 50 nm rather than in the larger particles. The use of methanol-biodiesel blends, compared with biodiesel, could reduce the number concentration of all sizes. A comparison between the particulate mass emission and total particulate number concentration with the mass of fuel burned in the diffusion mode show that they are strongly related to each other, even for the blended fuel.

A numerical study on RCCI engine fueled by biodiesel/methanol

“…This experimental result also yielded extremely low CO and NO x emissions, which were attributed to the more completed combustion due to higher oxygen content of methanol and low combustion chamber temperature because of the methanol cooling effect. Improved engine performance by using biodiesel and methanol blend fuels can also be found in [9][10][11].…”

Combustion and emission characteristics of a turbo-charged common rail diesel engine fuelled with diesel-biodiesel-DEE blends

“…Lin et al [19] studied the particle size distribution of a diesel engine that was fuelled with palm-biodiesel blends and reported an increased number of particles with low aerodynamic diameters in biodiesel and biodiesel-diesel blends, in comparison with that of diesel. Zhu et al [20] examined the influence of methanol-biodiesel blends on particle distribution in a direct injection diesel engine and reported that the use of methanol-biodiesel blends could reduce the number concentration of all sizes, as compared with biodiesel. Park et al [21] studied nanoparticle emissions of biodiesel-diesel blends and reported that both the total number and total mass were reduced when blending biodiesel; however, the number of fine particles was observed to have increased.…”

Influence of Waste Cooking Oil Biodiesel on the Particulate Emissions and Particle Volatility of a DI Diesel Engine

“…Fig. 6 shows that the GMD increases with engine load for each fuel which is a consequence of the increase in mass of fuel burned in the diffusion combustion mode at high engine load (Tsolakis, 2006;Zhu et al, 2010;Srivastava1 et al, 2011). The high fuel/air ratio and local temperature associated with high engine load also promote particle formation.…”