Experimental Study of Performance and Exhaust Emissions of a VCR Diesel Engine Fuelled With Oxygenated Additives

This paper reports the results of a study to determine a ternary blend of oxygenated additives for reduction in smoke emissions in diesel engines. Initial studies on binary blends established twenty percent (by volume) n-butanol-diesel blend (B20) as the base fuel. Subsequently observations were taken with Nitromethane (NM)-n-butanol-diesel blends. It was observed that binary blends are not able to reduce smoke and other emissions beyond the optimum blending ratio (B20). Also, Cetane Number of binary blends was found to be lowered due to poor Cetane Number of n-butanol. It is therefore necessary to add another additive which helps in reducing smoke substantially and improve Cetane Number of blend without affecting the other parameters. The study found that blending of one percent of NM by volume gives best results for smoke reduction. The overall effect of this ternary blend is to reduce the smoke and NO_x up to 69.76% and 5.4% respectively. It is concluded that NM-n-butanol-diesel blend would be a potential fuel for smoke reduction in diesel engines.