• International Journal of Automotive Technology
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• v.6 no.1
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• pp.15-21
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• 2005

The purpose of this paper is to experimentally investigate the engine pollutant emissions and combustion characteristics of diesel engine fueled with ethanol-diesel blended fuel (bio-diesohol). The experiments were performed on a single-cylinder DI diesel engine. Two blend fuels were consisted of $15\%$ ethanol, $83.5\%$ diesel and $1.5\%$ solublizer (by volume) were evaluated: one without cetane improver (E15-D) and one with a cetane improver (E15-D+CN improver). The engine performance parameters and emissions including fuel consumption, exhaust temperature, lubricating oil temperature, Bosch smoke number, CO, NOx, and THC were measured, and compared to the baseline diesel fuel. In order to gain insight into the combustion characteristics of bio-diesohol blends, the engine combustion processes for blended fuels and diesel fuel were observed using an Engine Video System (AVL 513). The results showed that the brake specific fuel consumption (BSFC) increased at overall engine operating conditions, but it is worth noting that the brake thermal efficiency (BTE) increased by up to $1-2.3\%$ with two blends when compared to diesel fuel. It is found that the engine fueled with ethanol-diesel blend fuels has higher emissions of THC, lower emissions of CO, NOx, and smoke. And the results also indicated that the cetane improver has positive effects on CO and NOx emissions, but negative effect on THC emission. Based on engine combustion visualization, it is found that ignition delay increased, combustion duration and the luminosity of flame decreased for the diesohol blends. The combustion is improved when the CN improver was added to the blend fuel.