Study on Performance and Emission Characteristics of Diesel Engines Using Ethanol-Blended Diesel Fuel

The objective of this project is to study the reliability of Ethanol-Diesel Blend Fuel,
or 'E-diesel', as an alternative fuel source for diesel engines. The recommended Ediesel
blend should be based on the study of performance and emission
characteristics.
This study focused on two characteristics: performance and emission. In
performance, BHP, torque, BMEP and BSFC via the combustion of ethanol-diesel
blends in diesel engine are studied. As for emission, the amount of the combustion
by-products, namely particulates matters (PM), carbon monoxide (CO) and nitrogen
oxide (NOx) are studied.
In order to achieve the objectives, project planning using Gant chart has been
developed. It started with Literature Study mainly on the underlying theories of Ediesel
and diesel engine principles. Series of experiment has been performed to test
various E-diesel blends (ranging between 5% v- to 25% v-ethanol) using Diesel
Engine Test Bed, Particulate Matter Sampler and Exhaust Gas Analyzer. Then,
analysis on the collected data has been conducted to come up with the best E-diesel
blends.
Form the results obtained, E-diesel has proven its reliability as the alternative fuel
source for diesel engines since it successfully reduced the emission by-product. But
the engine performance seemed to increase slightly compared to diesel fuel.
Furthermore, 15%-Ethanol blend has been recommended as the best blend in this
project since it met almost all the criteria set for the evaluation purposes.