Cold flow properties and CI engine parameters synchronic improvement of biodiesel/diesel/ C3 and C4 alcohol blends: Mixture design approach

Abstract

The rising demands of fuel and petrochemical fuels that have harmful gas emissions are encouraging researchers to develop green fuels, especially biodiesel. Whereas the substantial restriction for utilizing biodiesel as a replacement fuel is poor cold flow properties. This research aimed to consider the synchronic improvement of canola biodiesel-diesel-alcohols mixture with low-temperature performance and diesel engine parameters. The simplex lattice mixture design method was applied to optimize, statistically analyze, and design fuel-blend experiments. The best-fitted values via the models were verified employing analysis of variance. Optimum conditions for the cold flow properties of the ternary fuel blends were achieved at biodiesel (19.3), diesel (41.7), and alcohol (39) v/v.%, named as B19.3-Bu39. At the optimum, the best cold flow properties had a pour point and cloud point of − 22.67 and − 16.37 0C. Engine performance results revealed that increment of higher alcohols in fuel blend enhanced brake specific fuel consumption (6.22%) and exhaust gas temperature (16.25%), while the brake thermal efficiency (4.03%) diminished. At the maximum loading, emission reductions of 13% and 49% of carbon monoxide, and 20.3% and 30.5% of unburned hydrocarbon were achieved for B19.3 and B100 (100% biodiesel). Oxidative stability of the optimum fuel blend was 10.32 h, which is satisfactory according to EN14214 standard. Results implied that the B19.3-Bu39 fuel has superior lubrication, lower emission, wear, and friction as compared to pure diesel. It can be concluded that the incorporation of higher alcohols presents a novel prospect for the simultaneous improvement of fuel cold flow properties and CI engine operability parameters.