Combustion and emission characteristics of ethanolbiodieselwater

micro-emulsions used in a direct injection compression ignition engine

D.H. Qi
a,
*
, H. Chen
a
, R.D. Matthews
b
, Y.ZH. Bian
a
a
School of Automobile, Changan University, Xian 710064, China
b
Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX 78712, USA
a r t i c l e i n f o
Article history:
Received 26 March 2009
Received in revised form 16 June 2009
Accepted 22 June 2009
Available online 8 July 2009
Keywords:
Biodiesel
Ethanol
Micro-emulsion
Combustion characteristics
Emissions
a b s t r a c t
This work aims on the efcient use of ethanolbiodieselwater micro-emulsions in a diesel engine. A sin-
gle cylinder direct injection diesel engine is tested using neat biodiesel and the micro-emulsions as fuels
under variable operating conditions. The results indicate that, compared with biodiesel, the peak cylinder
pressure of the micro-emulsions is almost identical, and the peak pressure rise rate and peak heat release
rate are higher at medium and high engine loads. At low engine loads, those of the micro-emulsions are
lower. The start of combustion is later for the micro-emulsions than for biodiesel. For the micro-emul-
sions, there is slightly higher brake specic fuel consumption (BSFC), while lower brake specic energy
consumption (BSEC). Drastic reduction in smoke is observed with the micro-emulsions at high engine
loads. Nitrogen oxide (NOx) emissions are found slightly lower under all rang of engine load for the
micro-emulsions. But carbon monoxide (CO) and hydrocarbon (HC) emissions are slightly higher for
the micro-emulsions than that for biodiesel at low and medium engine loads.
2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction
Diesel engines are mainly used in industrial, transport and agri-
cultural applications due to their high efciency and reliability.
However, they suffer from high smoke and nitrogen oxide (NOx)
emissions [13]. The more stringent governmental regulations on
exhaust emissions and the fast depletion of world-wide petroleum
reserves provide a strong encouragement to the search for alterna-
tive fuels. Many researchers have concluded that biodiesel holds
promise as an alternative fuel for diesel engines. Biodiesel is oxy-
genated, biodegradable, non-toxic, and environmentally friendly.
The high oxygen content in biodiesel results in the improvement
of its burning efciency, reduction of particulate matter (PM), car-
bon monoxide (CO) and hydrocarbon (HC), but at the same time
produces larger NOx emissions. It is estimated that the burning
of neat biodiesel would produce about 10% more NOx than that
of petroleum-based diesel [47].
In order to reduce this adverse effect, investigations have been
carried out on different approaches for reducing NOx emission
when biodiesel is used. Szybist et al. [8] looked into the problem
by using cetane improver for modifying ignition delay and the
use of biodiesel with different bulk modulus for modifying fuel
injection timing, which have the potential for reducing NOx
emission. Leung et al. [9] concluded that controlling an individual
engine operating parameter cannot acquire satisfactory results on
optimizing biodiesel engine emission, and multi-parameter adjust-
ment is required for reducing HC, NOx and PM emissions. Fernando
et al. [10] concluded that the thermal NOx mechanism is the major
contributor to NOx emission, thus NOx can be reduced through the
application of water injection, ignition timing retardation or ex-
haust gas recirculation which can lead to reduction in ame tem-
perature. However most of these methods will normally lead to
deterioration in engine performance.
The emulsication technique is also being applied to reduce
NOx emission and to promote the combustion efciency for fossil
fuels [11]. Hence, emulsions of biodiesel are considered to curtail
emissions of NOx from burning biodiesel. Masjuki et al. [12] stud-
ied the performance of an indirect injection diesel engine fueled
the palm oil methyl ester emulsions containing 5 and 10 percent
of water by volume. The results indicated that emulsication was
effective in reducing the emissions level of CO, HC, NOx, and
smoke, prolonging the service life span for lube oil, and improving
the anti-wear characteristics of engine components. Kerihuel et al.
[13,14] applied ethanol animal fat emulsions to a diesel engine and
studied the formulation, inuential parameters and engine perfor-
mance. The result indicated that ethanol animal fat emulsion can
improve performance and reduce smoke, NOx, HC and CO emis-
sions at high engine loads.
Though several research projects have been carried out on a
number of alternative fuels in diesel engines, not much data is
available on the study of ethanolbiodieselwater micro-emulsions
0016-2361/$ - see front matter 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.fuel.2009.06.029
* Corresponding author. Tel.: +86 29 82334784; fax: +86 29 82334476.
E-mail address: donghuiqi@gmail.com (D.H. Qi).
Fuel 89 (2010) 958964
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Fuel
j our nal homepage: www. el sevi er . com/ l ocat e/ f uel
in diesel engines. Hence the present study aims to investigate the
combustion, performance and emissions of a single cylinder diesel
engine operating on ethanolbiodieselwater micro-emulsions,
and to compare these results with those operating on neat
biodiesel.
2. Equipment and experiments
2.1. Micro-emulsions preparation
The micro-emulsion process consists of introducing the chosen
quantity of surfactant, co-surfactant and water into the biodiesel. It
has been reported that micro-emulsions are instantaneously
formed when all the components are put together in required pro-
portions [15]. In this study, the biodiesel produced from soybean
crude oil is prepared by a method of alkaline-catalyzed transeste-
rication. Table 1 shows the fatty acid compositions of the biodie-
sel. The mass fraction of fatty acid methyl ester in biodiesel is
89.77%. The aim of surfactant addition is to reduce oil and water
supercial tension, activate their surfaces and maximize the super-
cial contact area to make micro-emulsions [16]. The surfactant
used in this study is Span 80. This kind of chemical products can
be characterized by their hydrophiliclipophilic-balance (HLB)
number. Span 80 has a HLB number equal to 4.3. This surfactant
is more lipophilic than hydrophilic and hence appropriate for mak-
ing water-in-oil emulsions. The co-surfactant permits to improve
the migration of surfactant at oil/water interfaces and enhance
the stability of the micro-emulsion [17,18]. In this study, ethanol
is chosen as co-surfactant because it is entirely miscible with bio-
diesel at ambient temperature and is a renewable fuel that can be
obtained by fermenting agricultural waste containing sugar [19].
Since ethanol has lower cetane number, the amount of ethanol
added in the biodiesel is limited to a maximum of 20% by volume
to prevent combustion troubles.
The water quantity dispersed in the biodiesel is very important
because it allows micro-explosion during combustion [20]. It was
noticed in past studies that the increase in water fraction in the
emulsied fuel results in signicant reduction in pollutant emis-
sions in case of vegetable oil [21]. The maximum water quantities
in the micro-emulsions are shown in Table 2. It can be seen that,
with the increase of Span 80 quantity, the maximum water addi-
tion to maintain the stability of micro-emulsion is increased. But
the water addition decreases the lower heating value (LHV) of
the micro-emulsions and increases ignition delay in a compression
ignition engine [22]. This paper mainly studied two ethanolbio-
dieselwater micro-emulsions, which composition are shown in
Table 3.
Table 4 shows the main properties of biodiesel, ethanol and the
micro-emulsions. Without engine modication, the fuel properties
of the micro-emulsion will affect the engine performance and
emissions. Ethanol has lower values of viscosity and density that
affect fuel quantity, injection timing, and spray pattern. Ethanol
has lower heating value which is approximately 30.9% less than
that of biodiesel. Therefore, it is necessary to increase the fuel
amount to be injected into the combustion chamber to produce
same amount of power. The ignition delay, which is the time be-
tween the start of injection and the start of combustion, will be af-
fected when the injection timing is changed. Ethanol contains
almost 34.8% of oxygen by weight and has lower cetane number,
which corresponds to longer ignition delay.
2.2. Experimental setup and procedure
The engine used is a single cylinder, naturally aspirated, four
stroke, water-cool, 16.5:1 compression ratio, direct injection diesel
engine with a bowl in piston combustion chamber. The maximum
torque is 52.3 Nm at 1800 rpm, and the maximum engine power is
11.03 kW at 2000 rpm. With the liquid fuel injection, a high pres-
sure fuel pump is used, having a plunger diameter of 8 mm con-
nected to a four-hole injector nozzle (each hole having a
diameter of 0.32 mm). The injector nozzle is located in the center
of the combustion chamber and has an opening pressure of
18 MPa.
A high precision ow meter is used to measure the fuel ow per
30 s. A Kistler piezoelectric transducer is installed for monitoring
the cylinder pressure (average for 100 working cycles) coupled
with Kistler charge amplier. CB566 combustion analyzer is used
to record the measured data. Gaseous emissions are measured by
AVL Digas 4000, a chemiluminescent detector (CLD) for NOx, a
ame ionization detector (FID) analyzer for HC, and a non-disper-
sive infrared (NDIR) analyzer for CO, and CO
2
. Smoke is measured
by a part-ow smoke opacimeter (AVL Dismoke 4000). The test
installation is shown in Fig. 1.
The engine was started with biodiesel fuel and warmed up. The
warm up period ended when the cooling water temperature was
stabilized. Then the cylinder pressure, fuel consumption and ex-
haust emissions such as NOx, HC, CO, CO
2
and smoke were mea-
sured. A similar procedure was repeated for two micro-
emulsions. Due to the pulsed characteristics of the engine, we al-
ways took 3 measurements to average the data for each operating
condition. This enabled us to determine the repeatability of the
measured data. To insure that the accuracy of the measured values
was high, the gas analyzer was calibrated before each measure-
ment using reference gases. The smoke density was indicated by
K value. K is light absorption coefcient of smoke. The following
formula illustrates the relationship between K value and N
(opacity).
Table 1
Fatty acid composition of soybean crude oil produced biodiesel.
Biodiesel composition Carbon chain % (by mass)
Fatty acid C12:0 0.2089
C14:0 0.7091
C16:0 15.2560
C16:1 0.7990
C17:0 8.8963
C18:0 3.9210
C18:1 17.8306
C18:2 34.4505
C18:3 4.6716
C20:0 0.3524
C20:1 0.3841
C22:0 0.6506
C22:1 0.2179
C24:0 0.2634
C24:1 1.1561
Unknown components 10.23
Table 2
Maximum dissolved water with different addition of Span 80.
Biodiesel (ml) Ethanol (ml) Span 80 (g) Water (ml) Appearance
80 20 1 1.4 Clear
80 20 4 1.6 Transparent
80 20 8 1.8 Well-distributed
80 20 10 2
Table 3
Composition of the test micro-emulsions.
Micro-emulsion Biodiesel (ml) Ethanol (ml) Span 80 (g) Water (ml)
ME1 80 20 4 0.5
ME2 80 20 4 1.0
D.H. Qi et al. / Fuel 89 (2010) 958964 959
K
1
L
log 1
N
100

Where, L is efcient length of smoke opacimeter; N is opacity (0
100).
The experiments were carried out by test fuels at different en-
gine loads. Before running the engine to a new fuel, it was allowed
to run for sufcient time to consume the remaining fuel from the
previous experiment. To evaluate the performance parameters,
important operating parameters such as engine speed, power out-
put, fuel consumption and cylinder pressure were measured. Sig-
nicant engine performance parameters such as brake specic
fuel consumption (BSFC), brake specic energy consumption
(BSEC) and brake mean effective pressure (BMEP) for biodiesel
and the micro-emulsions were calculated. In addition, the param-
eters such as heat release rate, pressure rise rate and combustion
duration were calculated to evaluate the combustion characteris-
tics of test fuels.
To estimate the repeatability of measurements and the accuracy
of the procedure, the coefcient of variance (COV) for each mea-
sured parameter was determined. It represented the standard devi-
ation of each magnitude as a percentage of its mean value. The COV
for each main measured parameter is presented in Table 5. Consid-
ering these values, it revealed that the measurements were quite
repeatable especially for engine performance. As far as pollutant
emissions were concerned, the COV was less than 3.4% for gaseous
pollutants and 3.6% for smoke. Using the measured data, we can
derive sound conclusions for the effects of the micro-emulsions
operation on engine performance and emissions.
Table 4
Main properties of biodiesel, ethanol and micro-emulsions.
Properties Biodiesel Ethanol ME1 ME2
Density (g ml
1
) 0.8700 0.7880 0.8545 0.8552
Latent heat of evaporation (kJ kg
1
) 200 840 333 360
Lower heating value (kJ kg
1
) 38,812 26,800 31,294 31,283
Cetane number 52 58
Kinematic viscosity at 20 C (mm
2
s
1
) 7.8 1.2
Stoichiotric airfuel ratio (kg kg
1
) 12.5 9.0 11.252 11.249
Flash point (C) 166 13.5
Boiling point (C) 330 78
Oxygen content (wt%) 10.0 34.8 15.0 15.0
Fuel Tank
Fuel Flow
Meter
Fuel
Pump
Air Filter
Air Flow
Meter
CI Engine
Kistler 5019 Charge
Amplifier
Kistler 6051B1 Transducer
for Cylinder Pressure
CB566
Combustion Analyzer
Crank Angle Generator
Photoelectric Sensor
Hydraulic
Dynamometer
Exhaust
Thermo Scope
AVL Digas 4000
Emission Analyzer
AVL Dismoke 4000
Smoke Meter
: Valve
Fig. 1. Schematic layout of the test installation.
Table 5
Coefcient of variance for measured magnitudes.
Measured magnitude Coefcient of variance
Cylinder pressure 1.5
BSFC 2.2
Nitrogen oxide 3.3
Hydrocarbon 3.4
Carbon monoxide 2.8
K value 3.6
960 D.H. Qi et al. / Fuel 89 (2010) 958964
3. Results and discussion
3.1. Combustion characteristics
The cylinder pressures at engine loads of 0.089, 0.177, 0.266,
0.354, 0.443 and 0.531 MPa were measured, respectively. When
the BMEP is lower than 0.266 MPa, the peak cylinder pressure of
micro-emulsions is lower than that of biodiesel, and when the
BMEP is higher than 0.266 MPa, the peak cylinder pressure of mi-
cro-emulsions is almost identical to that of biodiesel. The BMEP
of 0.177 MPa represents the low engine loads, and 0.443 MPa rep-
resents the medium and high engine loads. The cylinder pressure
variation of the micro-emulsions in comparison with biodiesel at
engine load of 0.177 and 0.443 MPa are shown in Fig. 2. It can be
seen that the micro-emulsions follow the similar pressure pattern
to that of biodiesel at both load conditions. It also can be seen that
the peak cylinder pressure of the micro-emulsions hardly varies
with the quantity of water in the micro-emulsions. The main rea-
son is that the ignition delay of the micro-emulsions is longer than
that of biodiesel. In this study, ignition delay is not measured, but,
the start of combustion may reect the variation in ignition delay
because fuel pump and injector setting are kept identical for all
fuels. Combustion starts earlier for biodiesel partially owing to ad-
vanced injection timing because of a higher bulk modulus and
higher density. The increase in ignition delay with the micro-emul-
sions can be explained by the vaporization of ethanol and water in
the micro-emulsions which cause the injected fuel spray into a rel-
atively low gas temperature environment and increases the period
of ignition delay. It can be further explained by the low cetane
number of ethanol.
As the engine load decreases, the residual gas temperature and
wall temperature decrease, leading to lower charge temperature at
injection, and lengthening the ignition delay. At low engine loads,
because of the longer ignition delay, combustion starts later for the
micro-emulsions than for biodiesel. As a result, the peak cylinder
pressure attains a lower value as it is further away from the top
dead center (TDC) in the expansion stroke. It also can be seen that
the peak cylinder pressure occurs earlier for biodiesel than for the
micro-emulsions at engine load of 0.177 MPa. As the engine load is
increased, the ignition delay decreases because the gas tempera-
ture inside the cylinder is higher at high engine loads, which re-
duces the physical ignition delay [23]. At engine load of
0.443 MPa, the combustion of the micro-emulsions start before
the TDC, so the increase in ignition delay results in a strong pre-
mixed burning phase and gives rise to the cylinder pressure. It
can be seen that the combustion starts earlier for biodiesel than
for the micro-emulsions, but the peak cylinder pressures occur at
nearly the same crank angle position for all test fuels.
Fig. 3 shows the pressure rise rate with crank angle of biodiesel
and the micro-emulsions at engine load of 0.177 and 0.443 MPa.
There is no evident variation of the peak pressure rise rate with
the quantity of water in the micro-emulsions. It can be observed
that, at 0.177 MPa, the peak pressure rise rate for the micro-emul-
sions is lower than that for biodiesel. The reason is that, at this en-
gine operating condition, a very small quantity of fuel is injected
into the combustion chamber and combustion starts near the
TDC for the micro-emulsions and premixed burning phase extends
to the expansion stroke. However, the peak pressure rise rate is
higher for the micro-emulsions at 0.443 MPa because the ignition
delay of micro-emulsions is longer than that of biodiesel and more
fuel is burned in the longer premixed burning phase. Further, the
water drops micro-explosions can improve the spray atomization,
which results in the faster combustion of the micro-emulsions
[24].
Fig. 4 illustrates the heat release rate with crank angle for bio-
diesel and the micro-emulsions at engine load of 0.177 and
0.443 MPa. It can be seen that the micro-emulsions follow the sim-
ilar heat release trend to biodiesel. It clearly shows a delay at the
starting position of heat release as compared to that of biodiesel.
The presence of ethanol and water fraction in the micro-emulsions
decreases the cetane number and increases the ignition delay. This
results in increased amount of combustible fuel to be prepared
within the period of ignition delay and increases the heat release
rate at 0.443 MPa. At 0.177 MPa the combustion becomes inferior
with the micro-emulsions due to premixed burning phase shift
afterwards to expansion stroke. Hence the peak heat release rate
is lower for the micro-emulsions.
3.2. Performance and emissions characteristics
Fig. 5 shows the BSFC variation of the biodiesel and the micro-
emulsions with respect to BMEP at engine speed of 1500 rpm. In
general, the BSFC values of the micro-emulsions are slightly higher
than those of biodiesel under all range of engine loads. The BSFC of
diesel engine depends on the relationship among volumetric fuel
injection system, fuel density, viscosity and lower heating value.
More micro-emulsions are needed to produce the same amount
of energy due to its lower heating value in comparison with
BMEP=0.177MPa
1
3
5
7
9
-20 -10 0 10 20 30 40
Crank angle (CA)
C
y
l
i
n
d
e
r

p
r
e
s
s
u
r
e

(
M
P
a
)
Biodiesel
ME1
ME2
BMEP=0.443MPa
1
3
5
7
9
Crank angle (CA)
C
y
l
i
n
d
e
r

p
r
e
s
s
u
r
e

(
M
P
a
)
Biodiesel
ME1
ME2
-20 -10 0 10 20 30 40
Fig. 2. Variation of cylinder pressure with respect to crank angle.
D.H. Qi et al. / Fuel 89 (2010) 958964 961
biodiesel. The improvement in BSEC (seen in Fig. 6) with the micro-
emulsions is attributed to the changes occurring in the combustion
process. The addition of ethanol causes the lower viscosity of the
micro-emulsions compared to biodiesel, which improved vaporiza-
tion and atomization in better mixing with air and leads to com-
plete combustion. In addition, with the use of micro-emulsions
an improvement in mixing process is observed. This improvement
is caused by the internal droplet micro-explosions of water, which
produce a secondary atomization, thus improving the mixing pro-
cess. The mentioned micro-explosion phenomenon is induced by
the volatility difference between the water and the fuel, and results
in more complete combustion and rapid heat release [25,26]. All
these factors result in lower BSEC with the micro-emulsions.
Fig. 7 shows the variations of CO emissions with respect to en-
gine loads. CO emissions of the micro-emulsions are higher than
those of biodiesel at low and medium engine loads, and at high en-
gine loads, CO emissions are identical for all test fuels. The increase
in the CO levels with the micro-emulsions is the result of incom-
plete combustion of the ethanolair mixture at low and medium
engine loads. Factors causing combustion deterioration such as
high latent heats of vaporization can be responsible for the poor
oxidation reaction rate of CO and increased CO production. As
mentioned above, a thickened quench layer created by the cooling
effect of vaporizing ethanol and water can play a major role on CO
production at part engine loads [27]. At high engine loads, ethanol
BMEP=0.177MPa
-0.4
-0.2
0
0.2
0.4
0.6
0.8
1
1.2
Crank angle (CA)
P
r
e
s
s
u
r
e

r
i
s
e

r
a
t
e

(
M
P
a
/

C
A
)
Biodiesel
ME1
ME2
BMEP=0.443MPa
-0.4
-0.2
0
0.2
0.4
0.6
0.8
1
1.2
Crank angle (CA)
P
r
e
s
s
u
r
e

r
i
s
e

r
a
t
e

(
M
P
a
/

C
A
)
Biodiesel
ME1
ME2
-20 -10 0 10 20 30 40
-20 -10 0 10 20 30 40
Fig. 3. Variation of pressure rise rate with respect to crank angle.
BMEP=0.177MPa
-0.05
0
0.05
0.1
0.15
0.2
0.25
Crank angle (CA)
H
e
a
t

r
e
l
e
a
s
e

r
a
t
e

(
k
J
/

C
A
)
Biodiesel
ME1
ME2
BMEP=0.443MPa
-0.05
0
0.05
0.1
0.15
0.2
0.25
Crank angle (CA)
H
e
a
t

r
e
l
e
a
s
e

r
a
t
e

(
k
J
/

C
A
)
Biodiesel
ME1
ME2
-20 -10 0 10 20 30 40
-20 -10 0 10 20 30 40
Fig. 4. Variation of heat release rate with respect to crank angle.
200
300
400
500
600
700
0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6
BMEP (MPa)
B
S
F
C

(
g
/
k
W
h
)
Biodiesel
ME1
ME2
Fig. 5. Variation of BSFC with respect to engine loads.
962 D.H. Qi et al. / Fuel 89 (2010) 958964
has less carbon than biodiesel fuel and its oxygen content increases
the oxygen to fuel ratio in the fuel rich regions, which is positive to
reduce CO emissions.
HC is an important parameter for determining the emission
behavior of the engines. It is observed from Fig. 8 that the micro-
emulsions give relatively higher HC emissions as compared to bio-
diesel at low and medium engine loads, but at high engine loads,
the HC emissions of ME1 fuel are slightly lower than that of biodie-
sel. At low engine loads, the HC emissions tend to increase because
of the quench layer of unburned ethanol present in the combustion
chamber. In addition to that the high latent heat of vaporization of
water result in low gas temperature environment, which is the
main factor to produce HC emissions. So ME2 fuel shows the high-
est HC emissions under all rang of engine load.
Fig. 9 shows the variations of NOx emissions with respected to
engine loads. The NOx emission is slightly reduced with the micro-
emulsions as compared with biodiesel. The main reason is that the
heat absorption by water vaporization causes a decrease of local
adiabatic ame temperature and therefore reduces the chemical
reaction in gas phase to produce thermal NO [28].
Fig. 10 shows the variation of the light absorption coefcient of
smoke (K value) with respect to engine loads. The micro-emulsions
exhibit evident reduction of smoke emissions at high engine loads
in comparison with biodiesel. It can be explained by the reasons
that the higher oxygen content of the micro-emulsions combined
with low C/H ratio contributes to the reduction of smoke. In addi-
tion, the charge cooling increases ignition delay and thus, enhances
the mixing of the micro-emulsions with air which in turn makes
better air utilization. Improved vaporization and atomization of
the micro-emulsions result in better mixing with air and leads to
complete combustion of the fuel at high engine loads.
4. Conclusions
Engine performance, emissions and combustion characteristics
of a diesel engine fueled with biodiesel and the ethanol biodiesel
micro-emulsions is compared experimentally. The following con-
clusions can be drawn from this study:
0
5
10
15
20
25
B
S
E
C

(
M
J
/
k
W
h
)
Biodiesel
ME1
ME2
0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6
BMEP (MPa)
Fig. 6. Variation of BSEC with respect to engine loads.
0
0.02
0.04
0.06
0.08
C
O

(
%
)
Biodiesel
ME1
ME2
0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6
BMEP (MPa)
Fig. 7. Variation of CO with respect to engine loads.
0
5
10
15
20
25
H
C

(
p
p
m
)
Biodiesel
ME1
ME2
0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6
BMEP (MPa)
Fig. 8. Variation of HC with respect to engine loads.
0
200
400
600
800
1000
1200
1400
1600
1800
N
O
x

(
p
p
m
)
Biodiesel
ME1
ME2
0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6
BMEP (MPa)
Fig. 9. Variation of NO
x
with respect to engine loads.
0
0.2
0.4
0.6
0.8
1
k

(
m
-
1
)
Biodiesel
ME1
ME2
0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6
BMEP (MPa)
Fig. 10. Variation of smoke with respect to engine loads.
D.H. Qi et al. / Fuel 89 (2010) 958964 963
1. The biodiesel produced from soybean crude oil can be trans-
formed into clear, transparent and well-distributed micro-
emulsions using water, surfactant (Span80) and co-surfactant
(ethanol). With the quantity of Span 80 growing, the maximum
water content to maintain the stability of the micro-emulsions
is increased.
2. The combustion starts later for the micro-emulsions than for
biodiesel. Compared with biodiesel, the micro-emulsions show
identical peak cylinder pressure and higher peak pressure rise
rate and peak heat release rate at medium and high engine
loads, but show lower at low engine loads.
3. The micro-emulsions tend to improve combustion and hence
have lower brake specic energy consumption under all range
of engine load and show slightly higher brake specic fuel con-
sumption due to the lower heating value, as compared with
biodiesel.
4. HC and CO emissions of the micro-emulsions are slightly higher
than those of biodiesel at low and medium engine loads, and at
high engine loads, all fuels exhibit almost the same HC and CO
emissions. NOx emissions are slightly decreased for the micro-
emulsions under all engine load conditions. Smoke of the
micro-emulsions shows evidently reduction in comparison
with biodiesel at high engine loads.
Acknowledgements
The authors wish to express their deep thanks to the West
Transport Construction Foundation from Ministry of Transport of
Peoples Republic of China No. 200631826253.
References
[1] Larsen Chris, Oey Frederick, Levendis YA. An optimization study on the control
of NOx and particulate emissions from diesel engines. SAE paper 960473;
1996.
[2] Summers JC, Houtte SV, Psaras Dimitrios. Simultaneous control of
particulate and NOx emissions from diesel engines. Appl Catal B 1996;10(1
3):13956.
[3] Ladommatos N, Abdelhalim S, Zhao H. Control of oxides of nitrogen from diesel
engines using diluents while minimizing the impact on particulate pollutants.
Appl Thermal Eng 1998;18(1):96380.
[4] Hess MA, Haas MJ, Foglia TA, Marmer WN. Effect of antioxidant addition on
NOx emissions from biodiesel. Energy Fuel 2005;19(4):174954.
[5] Szybist JP, Kirby SR, Boehman AL. NOx emissions of alternative diesel fuels: a
comparative analysis of biodiesel and FT diesel. Energy Fuel
2005;19(4):148492.
[6] Schumacher LG, Borgelt SC, Fosseen D, Goeta W. Heavy-duty engine exhaust
emissions tests using methyl ester soybean oil/diesel fuel blends. Bioresource
Technol 1996;57(1):316.
[7] Sharp CA, Howell SA, Jobe J. The effect of biodiesel fuels on transient emissions
from modern diesel engines part I: regulated emissions and performance.
SAE paper 2000-01-1967; 2000.
[8] Szybist J, Simmons J, Druckenmiller M, Al-Qurashi K, Boehman A, Scaroni A.
Potential methods for NOx reduction from biodiesel. SAE paper 2003-01-3205;
2003.
[9] Leung DYC, Luo Y, Chan TL. Optimization of exhaust emissions of a diesel
engine fuelled with biodiesel. Energy Fuel 2006;20(3):101523.
[10] Fernando S, Hall C, Jha S. NOx reduction from biodiesel fuels. Energy Fuel
2006;20(1):37682.
[11] Defries TH, Kishan S, Smith MV, Anthony J, Ullman. The Texas diesel fuels
project part 1: development of TxDot-specic test cycles with emphasis on a
route technique for comparing fuel/water emulsions and conventional diesel
fuels. SAE paper 2004-01-0090; 2004.
[12] Masjuki H, Abdulmuin MZ, Sii HS. Indirect injection diesel engine operation on
palm oil methyl esters and its emulsions. Pro Instn Mech Eng 1997;211(Part
D):2919.
[13] Kerihuel A, Senthil Kumar M, Bellettre J, Tazerout M. Investigations on a CI
engine using animal fat and its emulsions with water and methanol as fuel.
SAE paper 05011729; 2005.
[14] Kerihuel A, Senthil Kumar M, Bellettre J, Tazerout M. Ethanol animal fat
emulsions as a diesel engine Fuel part 1: formulations and inuential
parameters. Fuel 2006;85(1718):26405.
[15] Fernando S, Hanna M. Phase behavior of the ethanolbiodieseldiesel system.
Trans ASAE 2005;48(3):9038.
[16] Lin CY, Wang KH. Effects of an oxygenated additive on the emulsication
characteristics of two and three-phase diesel emulsions. Fuel 2003;83(4
5):50715.
[17] Lin CY, Lin SA. Effects of emulsication variables on fuel properties of two- and
three-phase biodiesel emulsions. Fuel 2007;86(12):2107.
[18] Wang F, Fang B, Zhang ZQ, Zhang SY, Chen YD. The effect of alkanol chain on
the interfacial composition and thermodynamic properties of diesel oil
microemulsion. Fuel 2008;87(12):251722.
[19] Prommes K, Apanee L, Samai JI. Solubility of a dieselbiodieselethanol blend,
its fuel properties, and its emission characteristics from diesel engine. Fuel
2007;86(78):105361.
[20] Satge de Caro P, Mouloungui Z, Vaitilingom G, Berge JC. Interest of combining
an additive with dieselethanol blends for use in diesel engines. Fuel
2001;80(4):56574.
[21] Ali Yusuf, Eskridge KM, Hanna MA. Testing of alternative diesel fuel from
tallow and soybean oil in Cummins N14-410 diesel engine. Bioresource
Technol 1995;53(3):24354.
[22] Ali Yusuf, Hanna MA, Borg JE. Optimization of diesel, methyl tallowate and
ethanol blend for reducing emissions from diesel engine. Bioresource Technol
1995;52(3):23743.
[23] Heywood JB. Internal combustion engine fundamentals. New York: McGraw
Hill; 1988.
[24] Masjuki H, Abdulmuin MZ, Sii HS. Indirect injection diesel engine operation on
palm oil methyl esters and its emulsions. Proc Inst Mech Eng 1997;211(Part
D):2919.
[25] Cheng CH, Cheung CS, Chan TL, Lee SC, Yao CD, Tsang KS. Comparison of
emissions of a direct injection diesel engine operating on biodiesel with
emulsied and fumigated methanol. Fuel 2008;87(1011):18709.
[26] Kadota T, Yamasaki H. Recent advances in the combustion of water fuel
emulsion. Prog Energy Combust Sci 2002;28(5):385404.
[27] Senthil Kumar M, Kerihuel A, Bellettre J, Tazerout J. Ethanol animal fat
emulsions as a diesel engine fuel part 2: engine test analysis. Fuel
2006;85(1718):264652.
[28] Mark PB, Musculus, John ED. Effects of waterfuel emulsions on spray and
combustion processes in a heavy-duty DI diesel engine. SAE paper 2002-01-
2892; 2002.
964 D.H. Qi et al. / Fuel 89 (2010) 958964