Influence of cetane number improver on performance and emissions of a common-rail diesel engine fueled with biodiesel-methanol blend

Abstract

In this paper, the effect of cetane number (CN) improver on performance and emissions, including particulate number concentration and size distribution, of a turbocharged, common-rail diesel engine fueled with biodiesel-methanol were studied. Two volume fractions (0.3% and 0.6%) of CN improver were added to BM30 (30% of methanol in the biodiesel-methanol blend) in the experiment. The results show that, compared with those of biodiesel-methanol blend, the peak value of cylinder pressure increases, the second peak of heat release rate decreases, the start of second heat release are advanced, and the fuel economy and thermal efficiency are improved when CN improver is added to biodiesel-methanol blend. Besides, CO and HC emissions decrease, NO_x emission varies little and smoke emissions increase slightly. Moreover, exhaust particles of BM30 mainly distribute in nano-size range. Furthermore, particle number concentration decreases and peak of size distribution profile shifts toward large size direction.

Key words： biodiesel; methanol; common-rail (CR) diesel engine; cetane number (CN) improver

Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 50821064).

References

1 Lapuerta M, Armas O, Rodríguez-Fernández J. Effect of biodiesel fuels on diesel engine emissions. Progress in Energy and Combustion Science, 2008, 34(2): 198–223

2 Demirbas A. Progress and recent trends in biodiesel fuels. Energy Conversion and Management, 2009, 50(1): 14–34

3 Murugesan A, Umarani C, Subramanian R, Nedunchezhian N. Bio-diesel as an alternative fuel for diesel engines—a review. Renewable & Sustainable Energy Reviews, 2009, 13(3): 653–662

4 Suh H K, Roh H G, Lee C S. Spray and combustion characteristics of biodiesel/diesel blended fuel in a direct injection common-rail diesel engine. Journal of Engineering for Gas Turbines and Power, 2008, 130(3): 032807–032809

5 Huang Z H, Lu H B, Jiang D M, Zeng K, Liu B, Zhang J, Wang X B. Engine performance and emissions of a compression ignition engine operating on the diesel-methanol blends. Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers. Part D, Journal of Automobile Engineering, 2004, 218(4): 435–447

6 Cheung C S, Zhu L, Huang Z. Regulated and unregulated emissions from a diesel engine fueled with biodiesel and biodiesel blended with methanol. Atmospheric Environment, 2009, 43(32): 4865–4872

7 Zhu L, Cheung C S, Zhang W G, Huang Z. Influence of methanol-biodiesel blends on the particulate emissions of a direct injection diesel engine. Aerosol Science and Technology, 2010, 44(5): 362–369

8 Zhu L, Cheung C S, Zhang W G, Huang Z. Emissions characteristics of a diesel engine operating on biodiesel and biodiesel blended with ethanol and methanol. Science of the Total Environment, 2010, 408(4): 914–921

PMID

9 Lu X C, Yang J G, Zhang W G, Huang Z. Effect of cetane number improver on heat release rate and emissions of high speed diesel engine fueled with ethanol-diesel blend fuel. Fuel, 2004, 83(14,15): 2013–2020

10 Lü X C, Yang J G, Zhang W G , Huang Z. Improving the combustion and emissions of direct injection compression ignition engines using oxygenated fuel additives combined with a cetane number improver. Energy & Fuels, 2005, 19(5): 1879–1888

11 Li W, Ren Y, Wang X B, Miao H Y, Jiang D M, Huang Z H. Combustion characteristics of a compression ignition engine fuelled with diesel-ethanol blends. Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers. Part D, Journal of Automobile Engineering, 2008, 222(2): 265–274

12 Liu S H, Zhu Z, Zhang Z J, Gao G X, Wei Y J. Effect of a cetane number (CN) improver on combustion and emission characteristics of a compression-ignition (CI) engine fueled with an ethanol-diesel blend. Energy & Fuels, 2010, 24(4): 2449–2454

13 Huang Z H, Lu H B, Jiang D M, Zeng K, Liu B, Zhang J Q, Wang X B. Combustion characteristics and heat release analysis of a compression ignition engine operating on a diesel/methanol blend. Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers. Part D, Journal of Automobile Engineering, 2004, 218(9): 1011–1024

14 Tsolakis A. Effects on particle size distribution from the diesel engine operating on rme-biodiesel with EGR. Energy & Fuels, 2006, 20(4): 1418–1424

15 Zhao H, Ge Y S, Wang X C, Tan J W, Wang A J, You K W. Effects of fuel sulfur content and diesel oxidation catalyst on PM emitted from light-duty diesel engine. Energy & Fuels, 2010, 24(2): 985–991