Fischer-Tropsch (F-T) diesel fuel is characterized by a high cetane number, a nearzero sulphur content, and a very low aromatic level. In the present paper, the performance and emissions of an unmodified single-cylinder direct injection diesel engine operating on F-T diesel fuel are studied and compared with those of conventional diesel fuel operation. The results show that F-T diesel fuel exhibits a slightly longer injection delay and injection duration, displays an 18.7 per cent average shorter ignition delay, and has a lower peak value of premixed burning rate and a higher peak value of diffusion burning rate than conventional diesel fuel. The engine with F-T diesel fuel has a slightly lower peak combustion pressure and a far lower rate of pressure rise, and consequently a lower mechanical load and combustion noise compared with conventional diesel fuel. In addition, the brake specific fuel consumption is lower and the brake fuel conversion efficiency is higher for F-T diesel fuel operation. The CO 2 , HC, CO, NO x , and smoke emissions with F-T diesel fuel are reduced at all operating conditions when compared with conventional diesel fuel. On average, NO x and smoke emissions are reduced by 16.7 and 40.3 per cent respectively with F-T diesel fuel. The study demonstrates that F-T diesel fuel is an excellent clean alternative fuel for diesel engines.
Although both biodiesel and n-butanol are excellent renewable biofuels, most of the existing research works merely use them as the additives for petroleum diesel. As the main fuel properties of biodiesel and n-butanol are complementary, the biodiesel/ n-butanol blends are promising to be a pure biomass-based substitute for diesel fuel. In this paper, the application of the biodiesel/ n-butanol blends on an agricultural diesel engine was comprehensively investigated, in terms of the combustion, performance, and emission characteristics. First, the biodiesel/ n-butanol blends with 10%, 20%, and 30% n-butanol by weight were prepared and noted as BBu10 (10 wt% n-butanol + 90 wt% biodiesel), BBu20 (20 wt% n-butanol + 80 wt% biodiesel), and BBu30 (30 wt% n-butanol + 70 wt% biodiesel). It was found that adding 30 wt% n-butanol to biodiesel can reduce the viscosity by 39.3% and increase the latent heat of vaporization by 57.3%. Then the engine test results showed that with the addition of n-butanol to biodiesel, the peak values of the cylinder pressure and temperature of the biodiesel/ n-butanol blends were slightly decreased, the peak values of the pressure rise rate and heat release rate of the blends were increased, the fuel ignition was delayed, and the combustion duration was shortened. BBu20 has the approximate ignition characteristics with diesel fuel. Both the brake thermal efficiency and the brake-specific fuel consumption of BBu30 were increased by the average percentages of 2.7% and 14.9%, while NO x, soot, and CO emissions of BBu30 were reduced by the average percentages of 17.6%, 34.1%, and 15.4%, compared to biodiesel. The above variations became more evident as the n-butanol proportion increased.
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