Enhancing Diesel Engine Performance and Reducing Emissions Using Binary Biodiesel Fuel Blend

Abstract

Fossil fuel consumption provides a negative impact on the human health and environment in parallel with the decreased availability of this valuable natural resource for the future generations to use as a source of chemical energy for all applications in energy, power, and propulsion. The diesel fuel consumption in the transport sector is higher than the gasoline in most developing countries for reasons of cost and economy. Biodiesel fuel offers a good replacement for diesel fuel in compression ignition (CI) diesel engines. Earlier investigations by the authors revealed that a blend of 70% amla seed oil biodiesel and 30% eucalyptus oil (AB70EU30) is the favorable alternative renewable fuel blend that can be used as a fuel in diesel engines. With any fuel, air/fuel mixing and mixture preparation impact efficiency, emissions, and performance in CI engines. Minor adjustments in engine parameters to improve air/fuel mixing and combustion are deployable approaches to achieve good performance with alternative fuel blends in CI engines. This paper provides the role of a minor modification to engine parameters (compression ratio, injection timing, and injection pressure) on improved performance using the above mixture of binary fuel blends (AB70EU30). The results showed that the use of AB70EU30 in modified engine resulted in higher brake thermal efficiency and lower brake specific fuel consumption compared to normal diesel for improved combustion that also resulted in very low tailpipe emissions.