The Effect of Water Contents to Diesel Fuel-Water Emulsion Fuel Stability

Abstract

The declining world oil and gas reserves along with increasing gas emissions from fossil fuel consumption has received serious attention as an urgent problem worldwide. The alternative solution to the problem uses emulsified fuel which is expected to provide better combustion efficiency and will contribute to emission reductions, such as NOx and particulate matter (PM). The one of most important factor in emulsion fuel is its stability. In this work, the effect of water contents to stability of diesel-water emulsion fuels has been investigated. The stability of emulsion fuel related to coalescence and sedimentation formation. The diesel fuel-water emulsification process was carried out in a standard stirred tank consisting of a cylinder tank (93 mm in diameter) and Rushton disk turbine (40 mm in diameter). Materials used consist of diesel oil (Pertamina DEX), demineralized water, surfactants (Lecithin, Triton X-100 and Tween 80). The surfactant used is a mixture of Lecithin - Triton X-100 (76.6%: 23.4%) and Lecithin - Tween 80 (45.5%: 54.5%) at 1% total volume of emulsion. The impeller set in constant speed at 1900 rpm. To reduce emulsification energy consumption, water is added gradually into the tank at 2 mL/min of flowrate. Water content varies at 5%, 10%, 20%, and 40% by total volume of emulsion. Physical properties of emulsion fuel such as viscosity and density at room temperature were investigated periodically. The characterization of emulsion fuel stability was measured by slope value of absorbance ratio at wavelength 450 nm and 850 nm. Sediment formation was periodically by visual observation as emulsion phase percentage. Emulsion droplet size was measured by Dynamic Light Scattering (DLS) method. Physical properties of emulsions such as density and viscosity tend to constant value in order of time. Emulsion fuel with 5% water content has the largest volume of emulsion phase in the rest of time, 83 % for L-T emulsion fuel and 95% for L-Tx. The lowest slope value shown by 5% emulsion fuel water content, -8.657×10-5 for 5% L-T emulsion fuel and -2,084 × 10-4 for 5% L-Tx emulsion fuel. Droplet size measurement of emulsion shown that different amount of added water caused the different droplet size of emulsion.