Comparative analysis of ternary blends of renewable Diesel, diesel and ethanol with diesel

Abstract

Renewable diesel is the alternative fuel, produced using hydroprocessing. Renewable diesel can replace diesel fuel without any modifications to existing CI engines. Alongwith renewable diesel, ethanol is also environmently friendly with better cold flow properties than diesel. In present work, various blends of diesel, renewable diesel, and ethanol were prepared, which is rarely researched. Physicochemical properties of all blends were investigated to do a comparative analysis with diesel. The percentage of ethanol was kept at 5%, 10% and 15%, renewable diesel at 20%, 30% and 40% and rest was diesel. It was observed that viscosity, density, and calorific value of neat ethanol (1.076 cSt, 764.1 gm/cm3, and 26.8 MJ/kg) was lower compared to diesel (2.42cSt, 837gm/cm3, and 42.57 MJ/kg) and renewable diesel (2.75cSt, 819gm/cm3, and 41.8 MJ/kg). This was overcome with higher proportion of renewable diesel in each blend. Cold filter plugging point of both ethanol (−51 °C) and renewable diesel (−14 °C) helped improve cold flow properties of all blends. There was an improvement in cetane index of various blends because of renewable diesel’s high cetane index (66.3). It is suggested to use ethanol up to 10% and renewable diesel up to 30% as such blends’ have physio-chemical properties at par with diesel.