Abstract
European legislation and new engine technologies require better quality in fuels, and the diesel scandal pushes engine and fuel developers to investigate new solutions. The decrease of fossil energy sources and the new, stricter emission regulations necessitate the discovery of renewable sources. Biofuels are an obvious solution to replace fossil fuels in a more environmentally conscious way. This study presents a new approach with the analytical investigation of butanol, hydrogenated vegetable oil, and diesel oil blends.In the presented phase of the research, our focus was on the most application- critical chemical properties of the fuels, to analyze if the three component blends are suitable for compression ignition engines. A wide-ranging chemical-analytical test plan was prepared with nearly 20 parameters measured of the chemical and physical parameters of blends, especially regarding flash point, cetane number, viscosity and cold filter plugging point (CFPP).The findings prove that from an engine-critical characteristics point of view butanol – hydrogenated vegetable oil – diesel blends are a potential solution, as HVO and butanol counterbalance its critical parameters.
Highlights
The continuous increase of fuel demand, simultaneous with the decrease of natural resources and the diesel scandal have increased the focus on new fuels and blending component development for compression ignition engines
Test results confirmed that cetane numbers can be handled as linear characteristics in diesel blending: every 1 % increase in Hydrogenated Vegetable Oils (HVO) content increased the blends Cetane Number (CN) with an average of 0.4 CN
Where CNblend stays for cetane number of the investigated blend, XBu represents volumetric share of butanol and YHVO stays for volumetric share of HVO in the blend
Summary
The continuous increase of fuel demand, simultaneous with the decrease of natural resources and the diesel scandal have increased the focus on new fuels and blending component development for compression ignition engines. Bio components are very frequently blended with crude oil based fuels; most commonly ethanol with gasoline and vegetable oil methyl esters with diesel. The advantage of using biofuels is that their reproduction cycle is much shorter than that of crude oil, a year or even a few months [1]. Fatty-AcidMethyl-Ester or FAME is the most commonly used diesel substitute [3, 4] and in most of the cases it is produced from a vegetable oil basis [5] (and from animal fat [6]). Due to its very low flash point and density, ethanol is difficult to use as a diesel blending component, despite the advantage that it can be produced from the non-edible parts of plants. Two common methods for producing n-butanol are starch fermentation with bacteria and crotonaldehyde-based catalytic hydrogenation
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
