Abstract
To elucidate the relationship between physicochemical properties, spray characteristics, and combustion performance, a series of experiments have been conducted in a constant volume vessel with injection of hydrous ethanol diesel emulsion and regular diesel. HE30 (emulsion with 30% volume fraction of 20% water-containing ethanol and 70% volume fraction of 0# diesel) is developed using Shah’s technique and regular diesel is also employed for comparison. Firstly, the physicochemical properties of two kinds of fuels are investigated. Then, the non-evaporating and evaporating spray characteristics are examined through the high-speed shadowgraphs. Finally, spray combustion experiments under different ambient oxygen concentrations are carried out, and color-ratio pyrometry (CRP) is applied to measure the flame temperature and soot concentration (KL) distributions. The results indicate that the physicochemical properties, such as density, surface tension, kinematic viscosity, cetane number, and oxygen content, have significant impact on the spray mixture formation and combustion performance. HE30 exhibits lower soot emissions than that of regular diesel. Further analysis supports the standpoint that the hydrous ethanol diesel emulsion can suppress the soot and NOx simultaneously. Therefore, the hydrous ethanol diesel emulsion has great potential to be an alternative clean energy resource.
Highlights
The attention to environmental pollution problems has resulted in stringent emission regulations worldwide
The density of HE30 is heavier than that of diesel fuel because hydrous ethanol is greater than diesel fuel
The surface tensions of HE30 are less than that of diesel fuel given that it is mixed results of different components with various surface tensions
Summary
The attention to environmental pollution problems has resulted in stringent emission regulations worldwide. Many studies focused on the development and application of biomass energy. These literatures [6,7,8,9,10,11]. Investigated the performance and emission of a diesel engine fuelled with biomass fuels and its blends. Their results show that biomass fuels could be a potential fuel for diesel engines. Bioethanol, as a carbon neutral and renewable source of energy, has attracted significant attention [7,12,13]. Shapouri et al [14] pointed out that the energy consumption accounts for up to 37% in the total input energy in the case of the ethanol production with corn as feedstock. Richard et al [15] pointed out that adding water to ethanol further increases injected fuel volume, but the increase in combustion duration and reduction in combustion stability are not significant with up to 30% water by volume
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