Experimental Study on the Performance and Emission of Chinese Small Agricultural Diesel Engine Fuelled with Methanol/Biodiesel/DTBP

Diesel engine alternative fuels, such as methanol and biodiesel, are beneficial to reduce diesel engine emission. In order to study the influence of methanol and biodiesel on the performance, economy and emission of small agricultural diesel engine, the physical-chemical properties(cetane number, lower heat value(LHV), viscosity, etc.) of methanol and biodiesel were analyzed. The methanol and biodiesel showed good complementary property to some extent. When a large proportion of methanol was added into biodiesel, the cetane number of the methanol/biodiesel blend will be greatly reduced. Since the cetane number of the blend fuel has great influence on the combustion process of diesel engine, after testing for blending ratio of methanol/biodiesel, the blend was prepared with 5%(BM5), 10%(BM10) and 15%(BM15) methanol, respectively. Di-Tert-Butyl Peroxide(DTBP) was chosen as a cetane number improver to be added into methanol/biodiesel blend. 0.25%, 0.50% and 0.75% of DTBP was added into BM15. The bench test was carried out on a 186 FA diesel engine to study the effect of methanol and DTBP on the engine performance and emissions. The results show that, at rated condition, compared with biodiesel, the NO;concentration of BM5, BM10 and BM15 is reduced by 5.02%, 33.85% and 21.24%, and smoke is reduced by 5.56%, 22.22% and 55.56%. However, the engine power is also reduced by 5.77%, 14.23% and 25.41%, and the brake specific energy consumption is increased by 3.31%, 7.78% and 6.37%. The addition of DTBP in methanol/biodiesel could recover the engine power to the level of diesel. DTBP shows good effect on the reduction of the brake specific energy consumption and NO_(x), CO, HC concentration, but a little increase of exhaust smoke.

Emissions of particulate matter and associated polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons from agricultural diesel engine fueled with degummed,deacidified mixed crude palm oil blends

Mixed crude palm oil(MCPO),the mixture of palm fiber oil and palm kernel oil,has become of great interest as a renewable energy source.It can be easily extracted from whole dried palm fruits.In the present work,the degummed,deacidified MCPO was blended in petroleum diesel at portions of 30% and 40% by volume and then tested in agricultural diesel engines for long term usage.The particulates from the exhaust of the engines were collected every 500 hr using a four-stage cascade air sampler.The 50% cut-off aerodynamic diameters for the first three stages were 10,2.5 and 1μm,while the last stage collected all particles smaller than 1μm.Sixteen particle bounded polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons(PAHs) were analyzed using a high performance liquid chromatography.The results indicated that the size distribution of particulate matter was in the accumulation mode and the pattern of total PAHs associated with fine-particles(< 1μm) showed a dominance of larger molecular weight PAHs(4-6 aromatic rings),especially pyrene.The mass median diameter,PM and total PAH concentrations decreased when increasing the palm oil content,but increased when the running hours of the engine were increased.In addition,Commercial petroleum diesel(PB0) gave the highest value of carcinogenic potency equivalent(BaP eq) for all particle size ranges.As the palm oil was increased,the BaP eq decreased gradually.Therefore the degummed-deacidified MCPO blends are recommended for diesel substitute.