EXPERIMENTAL INVESTIGATION THE EFFECTS OF ETHANOL AND DIETHYL ETHER ADDITION INTO DIESEL FUEL ON ENGINE PERFORMANCE AND EXHAUST EMISSIONS

In this study, effects of ethanol and diethyl ether addition into diesel fuel on the performance and emissions of a diesel engine were experimentally investigated. A commercial diesel fuel and three different blends prepared with 15% ethanol, 15% ethanol and 2% diethyl ether and 15% ethanol and 4% diethyl ether were used in the tests. The experiments were performed at an engine speed of 1500 rpm and under various loads by using a single cylinder direct injection diesel engine. The injection, combustion, performance and emissions parameters were evaluated for baseline fuel and blends. The results show that, the injection pressure decreases for all blends, and diethyl ether addition causes a delay in the injection timing. The burnt mass fraction is lower for ethanol and diethyl ether blends during early combustion phase, while it increases for diethyl ether blends during the progressive combustion phase. Ethanol and diethyl ether blends also give the reductions in the cylinder pressure and temperature. Air excess coefficient increases the rate by 9.3-10.4%, but exhaust gas temperature decreases the rate by 4.8-5.5% when using ethanol and diethyl ether blends. Although ethanol blend causes a decrement of 1.4% in engine power, reductions in engine power are between 0.3% and 1.1% for diethyl ether blends. Both ethanol and diethyl ether blends yield increments the rate by 14.7-17.2% in brake thermal efficiency and a reduction of 8.5% in brake specific fuel consumption. The reductions were obtained the rate by 6.8-18.2% for NOx and 10.3-13.8% for CO2 emissions, when using the blended fuels. Ethanol and diethyl ether blends cause the increments the rate by 5-12.5% for HC emission, while CO emission fluctuates depending on the engine load.