A review on butanol properties, production and its application in internal combustion engines

Abstract

The automotive vehicle markets are full of the application of internal combustion engines (ICE). Although, there is a very small share of battery operated engines that exist but it is in the developing stage and suffering from some challenges. Most vehicles are either SI engine or CI engine driven vehicles. The conventional fossil fuels petrol and diesel are the lifeline of these engines. The growing demand, increasing prices and harmful effects from the application of these fuels has raised concern over the use of it. Butanol is an alcohol based bio-fuel that presents the potential to overcome the negative aspects of traditional fuels and can serve the purpose of clean, efficient and environmentally friendly renewable alternative fuel. This review article includes the properties of butanol, its superiority over the other alcohol fuels like methanol and ethanol, its production method especially the ABE fermentation process and, its application and implementation in ICE as a neat fuel and as a blend. The neat butanol or its blend with petrol or diesel shows some advantages but to get more benefits from the application of butanol as engine fuel it needs to be used with innovative combustion methods. The low temperature combustion (LTC) and their different forms like homogeneous charge compression ignition (HCCI) and reactivity controlled compression ignition (RCCI) are the advanced combustion techniques in which butanol fueled operation offers more benefits as compared to butanol fueled SI and CI engines. In recent years, the potential of n-butanol (an isomer of butanol) is being investigated extensively in HCCI and RCCI engines as it shows excellent features like a great reduction in NOx and smoke emissions and higher thermal efficiency.