Energy 115 (2016) 539e549

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Energy
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/energy

Experimental study on the combustion and emissions fueling

biodiesel/n-butanol, biodiesel/ethanol and biodiesel/
2,5-dimethylfuran on a diesel engine
Zunqing Zheng, XiaoFeng Wang, Xiaofan Zhong, Bin Hu, Haifeng Liu*, Mingfa Yao
State Key Laboratory of Engines, Tianjin University, Tianjin 300072, China

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: The effects of biodiesel and its blends on the combustion and emissions were investigated on a single-
Received 18 February 2016 cylinder diesel engine fueling three blends included biodiesel/n-butanol, biodiesel/ethanol and biodiesel/
Received in revised form 2,5-dimethylfuran. The results show that the indicated thermal efciency (ITE) of pure biodiesel and
7 July 2016
three fuel blends are lower than that of diesel fuel at low load. With the increase of load, pure biodiesel
Accepted 6 September 2016
and three fuel blends present higher ITE than that of diesel fuel, especially at high load and high EGR
rates. The ability to reduce smoke can be sequenced as E20 > DMF20 > Bu20 > biodiesel. Pure biodiesel,
B20 and DMF20 exhibit higher NOx emissions than that of diesel fuel, while E20 has lower NOx emis-
Keywords:
Biodiesel
sions than diesel. For three fuel blends, their HC and CO emissions are higher than those of diesel fuel at
n-butanol low load, but lower than diesel at higher loads. It is benecial to further improve the thermal efciency
Ethanol and reduce smoke at high load by increasing the blending ratio of high octane number oxygenated fuels.
2,5-Dimethylfuran (DMF) At 50% EGR rate, the soot reduction percentages are 79% and 99.4% for Bu50 and DMF50 respectively
Low temperature combustion compared to diesel, and the thermal efciency is further improved compared with 20% blending ratio.
Diesel engines 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
With the continuous consumption of fossil fuels and increas-
ingly stringent emission regulations, the research on employing
biofuels in internal combustion engines has attracted more atten-
tion worldwide in recent years [1e5]. The rst-generation biofuels,
mainly biodiesel [6e9] and bioethanol [10e12], are produced from
food raw materials such as sugars and starches by fermentation,
and their applications in engines have been extensively researched.
With the fast development of biotechnology, the second-
generation biofuels, which are produced from non-food raw ma-
terials such as woody stem, agricultural residues, corn and straw
ber, gradually catch researchers' attention, in which n-butanol
presents more potential to be applied in engines [13e16], while
DMF also attracts high attention due to the progress of production
technology in the last few years [17e19].
For alcohol fuels, ethanol has been widely studied in the past
few decades and commercially used as fuels of gasoline engine. In
diesel engines, the oxygen content of ethanol is benecial to reduce
* Corresponding author.
E-mail address: haifengliu@tju.edu.cn (H. Liu).
smoke emissions [11,12], but the miscibility between ethanol and
diesel is limited. So, biodiesel was used as co-solvent for ethanol/
diesel blended fuels [20,21] or was blended with ethanol directly
[22e24]. Compared with ethanol, n-butanol shows some advan-
tages such as higher energy density, lower volatility and hydro-
philicity, which means it is less corrosive to the fuel system and is
more suitable for transportation and storage [15,16]. DMF is
regarded as one of the typical representatives of the second-
generation biofuels, whose octane number is higher than ethanol,
and energy density is higher than n-butanol (similar to gasoline).
Meanwhile, the cost consumed in production process of DMF may
be reduced by more than 60% compared to ethanol and it can be
produced from more kinds of raw materials, such as glucose, cel-
lulose, etc., which shows its better potential in engine application
[17,18].
Low temperature combustion (LTC) is considered as one of the
competitive combustion concepts of diesel engine to meet the strict
emission regulations in the future. LTC generally use exhaust gas
recirculation (EGR) combined with fuel injection strategies to
achieve ultra-low smoke and NOx emissions [25e28]. The goal of
employing EGR in low temperature combustion can be mainly
attributed to the following two aspects: one is to prolong the

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.energy.2016.09.054
0360-5442/ 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
540 Z. Zheng et al. / Energy 115 (2016) 539e549

ignition timescale to provide enough time for fuel/air mixing [29], on combustion and emission characteristics at different loads and
the other is to substantially reduce the combustion temperature to EGR rates, especially the low temperature combustion conditions.
avoid the formation of smoke and NOx [30,31]. However, the effect Meanwhile, the effect of blending ratio on combustion and emis-
of EGR on smoke is fairly complex, a soot-bump region usually sions was also investigated and discussed.
exists with increase of EGR rate although smoke can be signicantly
reduced by further increase the EGR rate, HC and CO emissions
2. Experimental setup and method
increase sharply and fuel economy deteriorates under heavy EGR
low temperature combustion conditions [32,33]. Therefore, the
The single cylinder, 4-stroke, 4-valve diesel engine used in this
main challenge of low temperature combustion is to simulta-
experiment was modied from a six-cylinder heavy-duty diesel
neously reduce smoke and NOx emissions while maintaining high
engine. The test single cylinder was equipped with independent
thermal efciency.
intake, exhaust and high pressure common-rail fuel systems. A
To address the problem mentioned above, many control stra-
cooled EGR system was employed and the EGR rate can be
tegies have been proposed, such as intake boosting [34], variable
controlled by adjusting EGR valve and backpressure valve. The
valve actuation (VVA) [35] and multiple injection strategy [36,37].
detailed specications of the test engine are shown in Table 1 and
Meanwhile, fuel property also plays a very important role in fuel/air
the schematic of the engine setup is shown in Fig. 1.
mixing and combustion process, and has attracted more attention
The in-cylinder pressure was measured by a piezoelectric
in recent years [38e40]. Some investigations indicated that adding
transducer (Kistler 6125C01U20). The charge signal of cylinder
biofuels in diesel is an effective way to reduce smoke and increase
pressure was amplied and converted to voltage signal by a charge
thermal efciency of low temperature combustion [41e43]. Guar-
amplier (Kistler 5108A1033) and then sent to the data acquisition
ieiro et al. [44] compared three types of fuels with different biofuel
system. The cylinder pressure data was recorded in half degree
contents, i.e., B5 (95% of diesel and 5% of biodiesel), B5E6 (89% of
crank-angle increment, triggered by an encoder (Kistler 2614A4).
diesel, 5% of biodiesel and 6% of ethanol), and B100 (100% of bio-
For each operating point, the cylinder pressures of 50 cycles were
diesel). They reported that B5E5 showed increased HC emissions
collected. Then the combustion parameters, such as indicated mean
and reduced NOx emissions compared to B5. In addition, although
effective pressure (IMEP), heat release rate, ignition delay, com-
B100 showed a reduction in HC emissions, however, the highest
bustion duration and combustion phasing could be derived with a
NOx emission and particle number of smaller diameter was
combustion analysis software package based on the in-cylinder
observed among the studied fuels. Soloiu et al. [45e47] investi-
pressure data. An external air compressor was employed to simu-
gated massive and professional works about butanol by port-
late boosted condition of the engine. The intake temperature was
injection and binary mixtures with ULSD (ultra-low sulfur diesel)/
kept at 40
C and the injection pressure was kept at 80 MPa for all
Biodiesel at idling condition and different loads and showed that
test cases. Gaseous emissions and EGR rate were measured by a gas
using butanol and biodiesel could greatly optimize the combustion
analyzer (Horiba MEXA-7100DEGR) and smoke was measured by a
parameters and improve the NOx-soot tradeoff relationship. An
lter paper smoke meter (AVL 415S). The uncertainties and reso-
et al. [48] investigated the impacts of oxygen concentration, cetane
lution/sensitivity of the main instruments are shown in Table 2.
number and C/H ratio of various blended fuels using KIVA-
In the current study, n-butanol, ethanol and DMF were blended
CHEMKIN code, and indicated that the effect of oxygen concen-
with base biodiesel separately to investigate their effects on com-
tration was the main factor dominating the major intermediates
bustion and emissions. Two blending ratios, i.e., 20% and 50% vol-
and emission formation processes. The research of Imtenan et al.
ume ratios were selected. The fuel blends of n-butanol/biodiesel,
[49] on a multi-cylinder diesel engine showed that the addition of
ethanol/biodiesel, DMF/biodiesel with the two blending ratios were
n-butanol and diethyl ether into diesel-biodiesel blends improved
referred as Bu20/Bu50, E20/E50, DMF20/DMF50, respectively. The
both the combustion and emission characteristics, and 10% of n-
results of pure diesel and biodiesel were also presented for com-
butanol and diethyl ether showed higher improvement than 5%
parison. The main physical-chemical properties of diesel, biodiesel,
blending ratio. Chen [50] investigated the combustion and emis-
n-butanol, ethanol and DMF are listed in Table 3.
sion characteristics of a multi-cylinder diesel engine fueled with
The experiments were conducted at engine speed of 1500 r/min
DMF/diesel, n-butanol/diesel and gasoline/diesel blends. They
and three equivalent fuel consumptions were set here, which cor-
pointed out that compared to diesel and gasoline/diesel blends, the
responded to 20 mg/cycle (about 3.4 bar IMEP), 40 mg/cycle (about
addition of n-butanol and DMF can signicantly improve the trade-
7.3 bar IMEP) and 60 mg/cycle (about 10.7 bar IMEP) diesel fuel
off relationship between NOx and soot and extend the low emission
mass conditions, respectively. For biodiesel and its fuel blends, the
region (NOx<0.4 g/kW.h, soot<0.01 g/kW.h) without deteriorating
cyclic fuel mass should be recalculated according to their low
fuel economy. DMF shows advantage in reducing soot emissions
heating values, i.e., fuels with smaller low heating values should
compared to n-butanol and gasoline should be due to the pro-
increase the injection duration to ensure the same energy input. At
longed ignition delay in their further study [51].
the three engine loads, the intake pressures were set as 0.12 MPa,
In summary, biofuels are important study direction for internal
0.15 MPa and 0.18 MPa, respectively. Three EGR rates of 0, 30% and
combustion engine, and fuel properties can signicantly affect the
combustion and emissions of engines. However, previous studies
mainly focused on biofuels like biodiesel, ethanol, n-butanol Table 1
separately. There are only a few relevant studies on DMF as CI en- Engine specications.
gine fuel, and the systematic comparison between the rst- Rated engine speed (r/min) 2500
generation and second-generation biofuels is also scarcely re- Bore  Stroke (mm) 105  125
ported. In addition, the effects of fuel properties on combustion and Connecting rod length (mm) 210
Compression ratio 16:1
emission characteristics might alter as engine operation condition
Displacement(L) 1.0818
and combustion control parameter change. Therefore, it is neces- Combustion chamber Reentrant type
sary to investigate the typical biofuels under different boundary Injection system High pressure common-rail
conditions. In this study, n-butanol, ethanol and DMF were blended Number of holes 8
into biodiesel separately to formulate different blended biofuels. Hole diameter (mm) 0.15
Included spray angle (deg) 150
The study mainly focused on the effects of biodiesel and its blends
 Z. Zheng et al. / Energy 115 (2016) 539e549 541

Fig. 1. Schematic of experimental setup.

Table 2
Uncertainties and resolution/sensitivity of the measurement instruments.

Instrument Uncertainties Resolution/sensitivity

Gaseous analyzer (HORIBA MEXA7100DEGR) 0.5% full scale 1 ppm

Smoke meter (AVL 415S) 0.005 FSN 3% of measured value 0.001 FSN
In-cylinder pressure (Kistler 6125C01U20) <1% 36 pC/bar
Air ow meter (vortex shedding ow-meter) <1% 0.1 m3/h
Fuel ow meter (AVL 733S) <1% 0.01 kg/h
Intake gas pressure (pressure transmitter) 1 kPa 0.1 kPa
Intake gas temperature (k-type thermocouple) 1
C 0.1
C

50% were selected in the experiment, which represented no EGR, leakage from the cylinder. The heat-transfer coefcient was ob-
medium EGR and high EGR conditions. tained via Woschni's correlation. The HRR were calculated by this
model, which has been used in previous researches [5,28,48]. By
comparing Fig. 2(a)e(c), it can be seen that with the increase of EGR
3. Results and discussions
rate, the differences in premixed combustion rate and combustion
phase of all fuels are more obvious, mainly owing to the extended
3.1. Combustion and emission characteristics of biodiesel/n-
ignition delay. This means that under the condition with high EGR
butanol, biodiesel/ethanol and biodiesel/DMF at different EGR rates
dilution, the effect of fuel property on ignition and combustion is
and injection timings
enhanced. Referring to the cetane number of each fuel in Table 3,
the sequence of test fuels can be ranked as
For the experimental results presented and discussed in section
diesel > biodiesel > Bu20 > E20 > DMF20. The cetane number of
3.1, the fuel mass is 60 mg/cycle and blending ratio in volume is
biodiesel is only a little lower than that of diesel, thus these two
20%. Fig. 2 shows the in-cylinder pressures and heat release rates
fuels present similar heat release traces and the heat release of
(HRR) of different fuels at different EGR rates when the injection
biodiesel is slightly faster than diesel. However, three fuel blends
timing xed at 10 deg CA ATDC. The cylinder pressure data was
show longer ignition delay and higher premixed heat release rate
analyzed by a single-zone heat-release model with an assumption
than biodiesel and diesel, and Bu20 shows the shortest ignition
that the mixture of air-fuel and the temperature was homogeneous
delay among the three fuel blends. As for E20, although its cetane
in the whole cylinder volume. In addition, there was no mass

Table 3
Properties of the test fuels.

Diesel Biodiesel N-butanol Ethanol DMF

Molecular formula C12eC25 C12eC24 C4H10O C2H6O C6H8O

Cetane number 55 52 17e25 8 e
Research octane number e e 96 108 119
Oxygen content (wt%) e 10 21.62 34.8 16.67
Density at 20
C (g mL1) 0.82 0.88 0.81 0.79 0.89
Auto-ignition temperature (
C) 210 363 343 434 286
Low heating value (MJ kg1) 42.8 38 33.2 26.8 33.7
Boiling point (
C) 180e360 262e359 117 78.4 92e94
Stoichiometric ratio 14.3 12.5 11.2 9.02 10.79
Latent heat at 25
C (kJ kg1) 270 320 626 904 333
Viscosity at 20
C (mm2 s1) 4.80 8.90 2.63 1.08 0.65
542 Z. Zheng et al. / Energy 115 (2016) 539e549
Fig. 2. Cylinder pressures and heat release rates (HRR) of different fuels at different EGR rates.
number is higher than DMF20, the ignition delay and heat release
rate trace are almost the same as DMF20, mainly due to the high
latent heat value of ethanol, which reduces the in-cylinder tem-
perature and extends ignition delay further. Meanwhile, the oxygen
content in biodiesel, butanol, ethanol and DMF can also improve
the combustion process, especially at high EGR conditions.
Fig. 3 illustrates the smoke and NOx emissions of different fuels
at different EGR rates. As the EGR rate increases, the NOx emission
sharply decreases while the smoke emission shows an opposite
trend, which is usually called the trade-off relationship.
Compared to diesel fuel, biodiesel and its fuel blends can improve
the smoke due to the oxygen content and long ignition delays,
Fig. 3. Ignition delay and smoke, NOx emissions of different fuels at different EGR
rates.
while the NOx emission increases to some extent. At EGR rate of
50%, the smoke emission is just near it peak value and the com-
bustion is very sensitive to fuel properties as discussed above,
hence the combustion and emission characteristics will be inves-
tigated and discussed in more detail at EGR rate of 50%.
The ignition delay and combustion duration for different fuels at
EGR rate of 50% and different injection timings are shown in Fig. 4.
The ignition delay is dened as the crank angle interval between
the start of injection and 10% of accumulated heat release (CA10).
According to Fig. 4(a), the ignition delay of different fuels from high
to low can be sequenced as E20 > DMF20 > Bu20 > Biodiesel
> Diesel, such order is closely related to the neat fuel cetane
number as stated above except E20 which shows longer ignition
delay than DMF20 due to its high latent heat value. The shortest
ignition delay is obtained at injection timing around 10~8 deg
CA ATDC, further advancing or retarding the injection timing re-
sults in the increase of ignition delay. What's more, when the in-
jection timing is retarded to be later than 8 deg CA ATDC, the
ignition delay of E20, DMF20 and Bu20 with lower cetane number
is more sensitive to the variation in injection timings. However, as
the injection timing is advanced to be earlier than 8 deg CA ATDC,
variation trends on ignition delay of ve tested fuels are very
similar. It shows that the effect of fuel properties on combustion
could be reected more deeply at late injection conditions. Fig. 4(b)
compares the combustion duration of different fuels at different
injection timings. In current study, combustion duration is dened
as the crank angle interval from CA10 to CA90 (90% of total heat
release). At different injection timings, three blended fuels all show
shorter combustion durations than neat biodiesel and neat diesel,
and the sequence of combustion duration is diesel > biodiesel >
Bu20 > DMF20 > E20, just show an opposite tendency compared to
 Z. Zheng et al. / Energy 115 (2016) 539e549 543

Fig. 4. Comparison of ignition delay and combustion duration for different fuels at EGR rate of 50%.

ignition delay as shown in Fig. 4(a). This is because the fuel/air
mixing process can be improved through extended ignition delay,
thus leads to a fast premixed burning rate.
Fig. 5 presents the maximum pressure rise rate (MPRR) and
combustion phasing (CA50) versus injection timing, and gross
indicated thermal efciency (ITE) versus CA50 for different fuels at
EGR rate of 50%. Fuels with lower cetane number result in longer
ignition delay and higher burning rate, which leads to higher MPRR.
As can be seen from Fig. 5(a), the MPRR of three fuel blends is
signicantly higher than diesel and biodiesel, especially under early
injection conditions. It can be seen that when the injection timing
is 18 deg CA ATDC, the MPRR of E20 and DMF20 reaches 14 bar/
deg (over the limit of ringing intensity), thus MPRR is the key factor
that limits the further advance of injection timing. Referring to
Fig. 5(b), CA50 is advanced linearly with advanced injection timing,
and the difference among ve test fuels is very small. It is well
known that CA50 is one of key combustion parameters that in-
uences the thermal efciency. According to Fig. 5(c), the ITE in-
creases as CA50 advances for the enhanced constant volume
combustion near TDC for all test fuels. Diesel shows the lowest ITE,

Fig. 5. Comparison of maximum pressure rise rate (MPRR), CA50 and gross indicated thermal efciency (ITE) for different fuels.
544 Z. Zheng et al. / Energy 115 (2016) 539e549
followed by biodiesel, E20, DMF20, and Bu20 shows the highest ITE.
Besides CA50, ITE can also be greatly inuenced by other factors,
such as the combustion duration, heat transfer loss, etc. According
to Figs. 2 and 4, biodiesel shows higher burning rate and shorter
combustion duration than diesel, which is the main reason that the
ITE of biodiesel is higher than diesel. The combustion reaction rates
of the three blended fuels are even faster than that of biodiesel,
which is benecial for the engine to get more power at a short time
period. Thus, the ITEs of them are higher than diesel and biodiesel
at the same CA50. However, Bu20, E20 and DMF20 did not follow
the trend that fuel with faster combustion rate gives higher ef-
ciency. E20 has the shortest combustion duration, but the ITE is the
lowest among the three fuel blends. One reason is that during the
long ignition delay more fuel enters the crevice region and
boundary region near cold wall for E20, thus incomplete combus-
tion products increase (refer to Fig. 7). At the same time, the fast
heat release could increase the bulk temperature and result in more
heat transfer loss. The ITE of DMF20 is lower than Bu20 may also
due to the more heat transfer loss.
Fig. 6 shows the soot, NOx emissions versus injection timing for
different fuels at EGR rate of 50%. Smoke emission is closely related
to the ignition delay, volatility and fuel oxygen. The extended
ignition delay and high volatility can improve the fuel-air mixing
process, and the oxygen in fuel can reduce the formation of soot
precursors and enhance soot oxidation. As illustrated in Fig. 6(a),
biodiesel can signicantly improve smoke compared to diesel for
its oxygenated structure, and smoke can be further reduced by
three fuel blends due to extended ignition delay and higher oxygen
content. The capability to reduce smoke can be sequenced as
E20 > DMF20 > Bu20 > Biodiesel, which is consistent with the
ignition delay trend of the fuels. For E20, it has the longest ignition
delay and the highest oxygen content, resulting in the lowest soot
emissions. Although DMF20 has lower oxygen content compared
with Bu20, the longer ignition delay can improve mixing and thus
leads to emit less soot than that of Bu20. This means that, the
ignition delay has larger effects on soot emissions than that of
oxygen content in fuels. All fuels show the highest smoke near 10
deg CA ADTC injection timing, and smoke decreases for extended
ignition delay with either advanced or retarded injection timing.
This further indicates that the improvement in mixing process
plays a signicant role in reducing soot emission even for
oxygenated fuels. At EGR rate of 50%, all fuels can achieve ultra-low
NOx emissions (lower than the limit of Euro 6 of 0.4 g/kWh), as
shown in Fig. 6(b). As injection timing retards, NOx emissions can
be further reduced. NOx formation is mainly dominated by com-
bustion temperature. Biodiesel, Bu20 and DMF20 show higher NOx
Fig. 6. Comparison of smoke and NOx emissions for different fuels.
emissions than diesel because their higher heat release rates can
lead to the higher combustion temperature in the cylinder, there-
fore, the NOx emission of DMF20 is the highest. It should be noted
that E20 also exhibits high burning rate, similar to DMF20, but its
NOx emission is the lowest. The reason is that the latent heat value
of ethanol is much higher than other fuels, and vaporization of
ethanol will reduce the local combustion temperature to some
extent, thus E20 presents the lowest NOx emission among the test
fuels.
Fig. 7 presents CO and HC emissions for different fuels at EGR
rate of 50%. CO and HC emissions show similar trends, biodiesel and
three fuel blends can improve HC and CO emissions compared to
diesel. The oxygen in the fuels can alleviate the situation of low
oxygen concentration caused by high EGR and promote the
oxidation of CO and HC. At the same time, long ignition delay of the
three fuel blends can enhance mixing process and increase com-
bustion temperature, which is also benecial for incomplete com-
bustion products reduction. The HC and CO emissions of E20 are
higher than Bu20 and DMF20, which can be attributed to the high
latent heat value and consequent lower bulk temperature of E20, as
discussed above.
3.2. Combustion and emission characteristics of biodiesel/n-
butanol, biodiesel/ethanol and biodiesel/DMF at different loads
In the previous section, the effect of biodiesel/n-butanol, bio-
diesel/ethanol and biodiesel/DMF on combustion and emissions
was discussed at 60 mg/cycle diesel fuel mass at three EGR rates
and different injection timings conditions. In fact, the in-cylinder
conditions will change as engine load varies, and the effects of
fuel properties on combustion will be inuenced by such variations.
Thus it's necessary to conduct investigation under different engine
load conditions to further explore the effects of fuel properties on
combustion and emissions. In this section, three fuel mass was
selected at 20, 40 and 60 mg/cycle equivalent diesel fuel mass,
which corresponded to relatively low, medium and high load of the
engine, respectively. During the experiment, CA50 was xed at 4
deg CA, 6 deg CA and 8 deg CA ATDC for 20, 40 and 60 mg/cycle fuel
mass conditions respectively to maintain relatively high thermal
efciency and keep a moderate pressure rise rate. For each load,
three EGR rates (0, 30% and 50%) were tested.
Fig. 8 presents the gross indicated thermal efciency (ITE) at
different engine loads and EGR rates. The ITEs of three fuel blends
are lower than pure diesel and biodiesel at low load, which means
that blended fuels do not show advantages on thermal efciency
improvement under such low load condition. This is mainly
 Z. Zheng et al. / Energy 115 (2016) 539e549 545

Fig. 7. Comparison of CO and HC emissions for different fuels.

48 Diesel Biodiesel Bu20 concentration at higher EGR rate, which lead to the increase in ITE
DMF20 E20
ITE(%)

46 for fuel blends at high load. For all the test loads and EGR condi-
EGR=50%
44 tions, Bu20 show the highest ITE while E20 show the lowest ITE
42 among the three fuel blends.
40 Fig. 9 shows the smoke and NOx emissions of different fuels at
48
EGR=30% 46 different engine loads and EGR rates. With the increase in load and
ITE(%)

44 EGR rate, the smoke emissions of all fuels present a rising trend. At
42 different loads and EGR conditions, the smoke is in accordance with
40 the results of previous section, i.e., the sequence of smoke is
48
E20 < DMF20 < Bu20 < biodiesel < diesel. Although smoke can be
ITE(%)

46 EGR=0%
44
42
40
Low load Medium load High load
Fig. 8. Comparison of gross indicated thermal efciency (ITE) for different fuels at
different engine loads and EGR rates.
because the long ignition delay and high volatility of fuel blends
result in more fuels entering into the crevice and near wall regions,
and under such low temperature low load condition, the combus-
tion efciency deteriorates and ITE decreases. The high latent heat
value of ethanol further reduces the combustion temperature,
which should be responsible for the lowest ITE of E20 at low load.
As engine load increases, the fuel blends gradually show their
advantage in ITE, especially for high load at higher EGR rate. The
reason lies in two aspects, one is that the shorter combustion
duration of fuel blends results in higher degree of constant volume
combustion, the other is the oxygen content of fuel blends can
compensate the negative factor of reduced in-cylinder oxygen
signicantly reduced with low cetane number oxygenated fuels,
fairly high smoke still exists under high EGR dilution condition at
high load. Oxygenated fuel and its blends usually present higher
NOx emissions compared to diesel, and E20 presents the lowest
value due to its high latent heat value. Although small difference
exists among different fuels at different loads and EGR condition,
NOx can be effectively controlled to a very low level with heavy
EGR.
Fig. 10 illustrates the CO and HC emissions under different loads
and EGR rates conditions. CO and HC emissions show similar trends.
HC and CO emissions increase accordingly for the reduction in ox-
ygen concentration and combustion temperature as EGR rate in-
creases or load decreases. At low load, fuels with longer ignition
delay usually show higher CO and HC emissions, while as load in-
creases, fuels with long ignition delay can reduce HC and CO by
improving the mixing process and combustion. Under high EGR rate
condition at high load, the HC and CO emissions increase dramati-
cally, especially to CO emissions which can be higher than 40 g/kW.h.
Therefore, the combustion efciency is deteriorated, which is the
main reason for the low ITE under such operating conditions.

Fig. 9. Comparison of smoke and NOx emissions for different fuels at different engine loads and EGR rates.
546 Z. Zheng et al. / Energy 115 (2016) 539e549

Fig. 10. Comparison of CO and HC emissions for different fuels at different engine loads and EGR rates.

3.3. Effect of blending ratio on combustion and emission emission can be reduced by 32%, 48% and 54.8% with Bu20, DMF20
characteristics and E20 compared to that of diesel, respectively. As the blending
ratio is increased to 50%, the smoke can be decreased by 79% and
As discussed above, the NOx emission can be controlled to very 99.4% with Bu50 and DMF50. DMF50 essentially can achieve
low value by applying heavy EGR at different loads, but the soot smoke-free combustion under high EGR rate and eliminate the
emission becomes a key issue need to be addressed at high load. By trade-off relationship between soot and NOx emissions. The effects
blending n-butanol, ethanol or DMF with 20% volume ratio can of blending ratio on NOx, CO and HC emissions is shown in
improve the thermal efciency and smoke at high load, however, Fig. 13(b). At EGR rate of 50%, all fuels can realize ultra-low NOx
the smoke is still relatively high with such a blending ratio. To emissions that below the Euro 6 emission standard limit (0.4 g/
further improve the low temperature combustion and soot emis- kW.h), the difference between 20% and 50% blending ratios is quite
sion at high load, in this section the blending ratio was increased to small. This again indicates that the NOx emission under low tem-
50% and the effect of blending ratio was investigated. The cyclic fuel perature combustion condition is dominated by EGR, fuel compo-
mass was xed at 60 mg/cycle equivalent diesel fuel, CA50 was sition and blending ratio only play a minor rule. Increasing
xed at 8 deg CA ATDC and EGR rate was xed at 50%. Such CA50 blending ratio can improve HC and CO emissions to some extent by
timing was selected to control the MPRR from high premixed
combustion with high blending ratio fuels. It should be pointed out
that because of the low cetane number and high latent heat value,
misre occurs for E50 at high EGR dilution condition, so no data for
E50 is presented.
Fig. 11(a) presents in-cylinder pressure and heat release rate of
different fuels at 50% blending ratio, and Fig. 11(b) compares the
cylinder pressure and heat release rate of biodiesel, DMF20 and
DMF50. Bu50 and DMF50 present remarkable amount of premixed
combustion, along with high heat release rate and combustion
pressure. DMF50 exhibits even faster combustion than Bu50. As can
be seen in Fig. 11(b), with the increase of blending ratio, the pro-
portion of premixed combustion increases and burning rate gets
faster, which in turn results in signicantly higher peak cylinder
pressure.
Fig. 12 compares the ignition delay, combustion duration, MPRR
and indicated thermal efciency of various blends with 20% and
50% blending ratios. When blending ratio is increased to 50%, a
signicant extension in ignition delay can be observed due to the
further reduction in fuel cetane number. In addition, the longer
ignition delay leads to the fast burning of more premixed charge,
results in shorter combustion duration and higher MPRR, and the
MPRR of DMF50 is relatively high (>12 bar/
CA), therefore that long
time operation under such condition with DMF50 is restricted. As
regard to thermal efciency, increasing blending ratio to 50% can
signicantly improve ITE compared to 20% blending ratio because
of the shortened combustion duration. At the same time, the
increased oxygen content in fuel is also benecial for combustion
improvement under high EGR condition. DMF50 shows signicant
improvement in ITE than Bu50, while the MPRR of DMF50 also is
the highest as mentioned above and becomes an issue need to be
solved.
Fig. 13(a) presents the effect of blending ratio on smoke emis-
sions. The vertical coordinate of the right side is the percentage of Fig. 11. Effects of blending ratio and fuel properties on in-cylinder pressure and heat
smoke of various fuels relative to baseline diesel. The smoke release rate.
 Z. Zheng et al. / Energy 115 (2016) 539e549
Fig. 12. Effects of blending ratio on combustion characteristics.
enhancing mixing, accelerating combustion and increasing oxygen
content. In addition, more obvious reduction in CO and HC can be
obtained by DMF50.
Therefore, reasonably increasing the blending ratio of oxygen-
ated low cetane number biofuels is an effective method to improve
the combustion and to reduce the soot emissions, which is one of
key issues that high EGR low temperature combustion faces.
However, for these low cetane number biofuels, some problems
also exist, e.g., E50 cannot achieve stable combustion for test load
while DMF50 exhibits high MPRR though it presents the best ability
to reduce soot emissions and improve the ITE. Therefore, when low
cetane number oxygenated fuels are taken into consideration to
improve the low temperature combustion and emissions, an
optimal blending ratio should be coupled with fuel property to fully
utilize its potential to achieve clean and high efcient combustion.
For high EGR dilution low temperature combustion, the high
EGR rates have extend the ignition delay and reduce the combus-
tion temperature and chemical reaction rate. Therefore, as
oxygenated fuels with low cetane number are added into diesel/
biodiesel fuel to reduce soot-bump region. The control on fuel
properties should be very careful.
Firstly, it can be seen that the lower soot emissions mainly
caused by the longer ignition delay based on the comparison be-
tween n-butanol and DMF addition. The lower cetane number can
effectively extend the ignition delay and improve mixing processes,
but it can also result in higher pressure rise rate and larger me-
chanical load and combustion noise. Obviously, too high pressure
rise rate has exceeded the endurance of current engines. Therefore,
the blending ratio is subjected to the limit of pressure rise rate
although the higher blend ratio can lead to higher thermal
Fig. 13. Effects of blending ratio on smoke and gaseous emissions.
547
efciency and lower soot emissions.
Secondly, low cetane number fuels with high latent heat value
may result in misre especially under the conditions of high
blending ratio, although the NOx emission can be reduced due to
fuel latent heat reducing local temperature. High latent heat value
can further increase the ignition delay, which makes the whole
auto-ignition been retarded to the late of expansion stroke where
in-cylinder temperature and pressure is lower, and thus the com-
bustion reaction is very hard to be continuously proceeded,
resulting in the misre in nal. However, if the injection timing is
advanced, the ignition may be occurred but company with high
pressure rise rate and knock. Therefore, for the low cetane
number fuel, if it has high latent heat value, it will have stronger
tendency on misre and knock, and thus can not achieve stable
combustion.
Thirdly, the pilot injection and post injection should be the
effective methods to reduce pressure rise rate and soot emissions,
respectively, as fueling diesel. However, as high cetane number fuel
is added into diesel, the effect of multiple injection on combustion
depends on fuel properties. According our previous study [28],
adopting pilot injection close to main injection can effectively
reduce the peak of premixed heat release rate and pressure rise
rate. However, for fuels blends with high percentage of low cetane
number fuel, the effect of pilot fuel on ignition can be neglected and
the improvement of pressure rise rate is not obvious. Meantime, the
soot reduction caused by post injection is very limited to oxygen-
ated blending fuels with low cetane number. This means that, to
obtain low soot emissions, a higher blending ratio with lower ce-
tane number is needed because the post injection can not effec-
tively reduce soot. But, this high blending ratio will result in higher
548 Z. Zheng et al. / Energy 115 (2016) 539e549
pressure rise rate, and moreover, it can not be reduced effectively
by pilot injection.
Therefore, the blending ratio of oxygenated fuel should be
limited by the engine pressure rise rate and combustion stability,
which depends on fuel cetane number, latent heat value. An
optimal blending ratio should be coupled with fuel property to
reach clean and high-efciency combustion. The cetane number of
blending fuels can not be too low, otherwise the pressure rise rate
will be too high. As using a fuel with high latent heat value, it will be
much easier to misre. To improve the mixing process as using
higher cetane number fuels, the distillation temperature can be
reduced to promote the mixing during the shorter ignition delay.
This means that the improved mixing process is not completed
dependent on the longer ignition delay caused by lower cetane
number. Therefore, for high EGR rate diesel engine combustion,
these fuel properties should be needed that a relative higher
vaporization than diesel, the cetane number and latent heat value
do not affect pressure rise rate too much and can keep stable
combustion.
4. Conclusions
Combustion and emission characteristics of biodiesel/n-butanol,
biodiesel/ethanol and biodiesel/DMF were investigated on a single
cylinder diesel engine. Three EGR rates (0, 30% and 50%), three
engine loads (20, 40 and 60 mg/cycle diesel fuel) and two blending
ratios (20% and 50%) were selected for the experiment, and the
effect of different fuel blends and blending ratio on low tempera-
ture combustion is the focus of this study. The main conclusions can
be summarized as follows:
(1) Compared with diesel fuel, the indicated thermal efciency
(ITE) of pure biodiesel and three fuel blends (biodiesel/n-
butanol, biodiesel/ethanol and biodiesel/DMF) are lower at
the low load. With the increase of load, pure biodiesel and
three fuel blends present higher ITE than that of diesel fuel,
especially at high load and high EGR rates. Bu20 shows the
highest ITE while E20 shows the lowest ITE among the three
fuel blends.
(2) Smoke emissions of pure biodiesel and three fuel blends are
lower than that of diesel fuel at different loads and EGR rates,
and the ability to reduce smoke from high to low can be
sequenced as E20 > DMF20 > Bu20 > biodiesel. Pure bio-
diesel, Bu20 and DMF20 exhibits higher NOx emissions than
that of diesel fuel, while E20 has lower NOx emissions than
diesel. HC and CO emissions of biodiesel are similar to diesel
fuel. For three fuel blends, their HC and CO emissions are
higher than those of diesel fuel at low load, but lower than
diesel at higher loads.
(3) It is benecial to further improve the thermal efciency and
reduce smoke at high load by increasing the blending ratio of
high octane number oxygenated fuels. At 50% EGR rate, Bu50
and DMF50 can realize typical premixed low temperature
combustion. The soot reduction percentages are 79% and
99.4% for Bu50 and DMF50 respectively compared to diesel,
and the thermal efciency is improved meanwhile. However,
the main challenges on these low cetane number biofuels are
to achieve stable combustion and reduce excessive MPRR.
Therefore, optimal blending ratio should be coupled with
fuel property to achieve its full potential in realizing clean
and high-efciency combustion.
Acknowledgments
The authors would like to acknowledge the nancial supports to
the research provided by National Natural Science Foundation of
China (NSFC) through the project of 51576138 and 91541111, and
provided by National Basic Research Program of China (973 Pro-
gram) through its Project of 2013CB228402.
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