Abstract
Dimethyl carbonate (DMC) is an interesting blending component for diesel fuel (D) owing to the high oxygen content (53 wt.%) and the absence of C–C bonds in its structure. Moreover, DMC can be produced from CO2 and methanol, which provides a renewable way to reduce anthropogenic CO2. This research has been addressed to assess the use of DMC as a solvent of sunflower oil (SO) and castor oil (CO), with the purpose of obtaining biofuels that can replace fossil diesel as much as possible. The blending of DMC with straight vegetable oils (SVOs) reduces their high viscosity, allowing their usage as drop-in biofuels without chemical treatments. Based on viscosity requirements of European Standard EN 590, the optimal DMC/SVO double blends have been tested as direct biofuels by themselves or mixed with fossil diesel in D/DMC/SVO triple blends. Relevant physico-chemical properties of fuels have been analyzed. Engine parameters such as power output, brake-specific fuel consumption (BSFC) and soot emissions have been studied to determine the effect of new biofuels on efficiency of a diesel engine. An outstanding engine efficiency is shown by the studied D/DMC/SVO triple blends, either with SO or CO as an SVO. The low calorific value of DMC is the main reason for reduction in power and BSFC, as the amount of diesel in the triple blends is reduced. Experimental results demonstrate that the use of these biofuels allows the replacement of up to 40% of fossil diesel, without compromising the power and BSFC of the engine, and accomplishing optimal cold flow properties and a marked drop in exhaust emissions.
Highlights
The necessary climate change mitigation, along with the decreasing crude oil reserves, make gradual fossil fuel replacement mandatory
The most suitable binary blends composed of dimethyl carbonate (DMC) and sunflower or castor oils have been chosen based on this property
The results show that suitable viscosity values of 4.42 and 3.59 cSt can be obtained by the addition of 40% and 45% DMC to sunflower and castor oil, respectively
Summary
The necessary climate change mitigation, along with the decreasing crude oil reserves, make gradual fossil fuel replacement mandatory. The use of oxygen-rich compounds as viscosity improvers allows to a better combustion process and reduced emissions In this sense, light vegetable oils (orange, camphor, eucalyptus and pine oil) [10,11,12,13] and lower (methanol and ethanol) [14,15,16] and higher alcohols (1-propanol, 2-propanol, isobutanol, 1-butanol, 2-butanol and 1-pentanol) [16,17], as well as other renewable oxygenated compounds (diethyl ether, acetone, ethyl acetate, diethyl carbonate and so on) [18,19,20,21] have recently been described as viscosity reducers of SVOs. Overall, the exhaust emissions were significantly reduced with the use of these blends, resulting in a similar or slightly lower engine performance than that exhibited by conventional diesel. The evaluation of the performance of a diesel engine fueled with the proposed new fuels through relevant engine parameters, such as brake-specific fuel consumption (BSFC), power output and generated smoke emissions, has been carried out
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