Performance of Naphtha in Compression Ignition Modes Using Multicomponent Surrogate Fuel Model

Abstract

Gasoline compression ignition (GCI) engines have been considered a promising technology for achieving diesel-like efficiency with less NOx and soot emissions than diesel engines. In recent research, naphtha has emerged as a suitable fuel for GCI owing to its octane number and its potential to reduce CO2 and production costs. The present work develops a multicomponent surrogate fuel model for heavy and light naphtha fuels by matching their distillation profiles and covering the measured concentrations of the various hydrocarbon classes and properties. The developed naphtha multicomponent surrogate model shows better prediction results than the primary reference fuel (PRF) surrogate model and exhibits good agreement with the measured data. The performance of naphtha in compression ignition (CI) combustion modes is investigated using the surrogate model and engine experiments. Naphtha fuels under CI combustion modes show better soot, HC, and CO emissions than diesel owing to the longer ignition delay and higher burned gas temperature. Moreover, as naphtha fuels are less affected by the injection pressure, naphtha CI engines appear to operate at a lower injection pressure than diesel engines.