The performance and emission of a generator-diesel engine fueled with palm oil methyl ester combined with carbureting biobutanol

Abstract

Palm oil methyl ester (POME) has been partially blended with diesel and applied to diesel vehicles according to its advantages of lowering carbon monoxide (CO) and particulate matter (PM) but carbon dioxide (CO2) and nitrogen oxides (NOx) are yet trade-off. By premixed combustion technique, performance and exhaust emissions of a diesel engine-generator system fueled with POME combined with carbureting biobutanol are studied, at 3,000 rpm speed under load variation without engine re-calibration. POME was combined with the low activity biobutanol, supplied by carburetion with the rates of 0.20 to 0.34 g/s. The results of the engine test have shown the continuous reduction of engine performance and exhaust emissions for the highly fumigated biobutanol, combined with POME. The POME combined with 0.20 g/s carbureting biobutanol improved the thermal efficiency, albeit the specific fuel consumption was slightly higher than the neat POME. The releases of CO2, NOx and PM were reduced by 5%, 6% and 24%, respectively but suffering from 18% CO incrementation compared with POME. The premixed biobutanol is limited by a carburetor main jet that may lead to the addition of CO. The premixing method modification is required for further research.