Quaternary blends of diesel/biodiesel/vegetable oil/pentanol as a potential alternative feedstock for existing unmodified diesel engine: Performance, combustion and emission characteristics

• Published in: Energy (Oxford) 2019-11, Vol.186, p.115856, Article 115856
• Main Authors: Appavu, Prabhu, Ramanan M, Venkata, Venu, Harish
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Alcohol; Alcohols; Alternative fuels; Biodiesel fuels; Biofuels; Combustion; Cylinders; Diesel; Diesel engines; Emission; Emissions; Fossil fuels; Fuel mixtures; Fuels; Mixtures; Nitrogen oxides; Oils & fats; Peak pressure; Pentanol; Pollution levels; Quaternary; Smoke; Vegetable oils
• ISSN: 0360-5442; 1873-6785
• DOI: 10.1016/j.energy.2019.115856

The dearth of fossil fuels and aggravation of pollution levels are key factors responsible for the search of novel alternative fuel mixture. Since late 20th century, several researches were carried out with minimized alcohol content blended with base fuel. Alcohols blended with diesel were called as binary blends while alcohols blended with biodiesel-diesel blends were called as ternary fuels. However, there is very limited work in quaternary blends (diesel-biodiesel-oil-alcohol) which aims at partially replacing fossil fuel to a greater extent. Hence, the current research work focuses on utilizing quaternary blends with varying pentanol concentration (10%–40%) with fixed concentration of oil (5%) and diesel (50%). Test fuels were experimented in a single cylinder diesel engine and the results were compared with diesel and biodiesel blends. Results were interesting as BSFC and BSEC were reduced with increasing pentanol concentration. Emission wise, HC, CO and smoke were reduced while NOx increases marginally for quaternary blends with higher pentanol concentration. Combustion characteristics revealed that 40% pentanol blending has maximized peak pressure with increased HRR and minimal CHRR. Overall, 40% pentanol addition in diesel-biodiesel-oil can be a suitable alternative fuel mix for improving the performance and minimizing the emissions with marginal compromise in NOx emissions. [Display omitted] •Quaternary blends of diesel/biodiesel/vegetable oil/pentanol were found to be efficient.•Highest BTE (37.2%) and lowest BSFC (0.266kg/kWh) were observed.•38.18% higher NOx, lowered HC and CO emissions were observed.•Ignition delay and Mass fraction burnt (MFB) were lowered for quaternary blends.•NOx emissions and heat release rate (HRR) were improved for quaternary blends.