Abstract:
Increasingly stringent emissions regulations and environmental concerns have caused interest in the
development of alternative fuels for internal combustion engines. Recently biobutanol, bioethanol and biodiesel
emerged as an alternative fuels due to their oxygenated nature. This paper investigates the physical stability of
ethanol-diesel blends using Jatropha oil methyl esters and enerdiesel emulsifier as additives, subsequently
analysis of physico-chemical properties. Furthermore, experimental tests were carried out to study the
performance (fuel consumption, thermal efficiency, exhaust gas temperature) and emissions (CO, NOx, HC and
smoke) of Direct Injection (DI) engine fuelled with the various blends compared with those fuelled by diesel.
The blends used for this study were B0D95E5, B0D90E10, B15D70E15 and B20D60E20. It is revealed from the
observations that the test fuel blends are physically and thermally stable upto 17 days at room temperature. The
physico-chemical properties of the all blends show good resemblance with that of diesel except the flash point.
The performance results show that B0D95E5 fuel blend has maximum brake thermal efficiency and minimum
Brake Specific Fuel Consumption (bsfc) at higher loads. Similarly, the overall emission characteristics are
found to be best for the case of B0D90E10 over the entire range of engine operations.
