Analysis of Soot from the Use of Butanol Blends in a Euro 6 Diesel Engine

The use of advanced fuels must increase from 0.5 to 3.6% of the total fuel consumption in internal combustion engines according to the forthcoming European directive. In this regard, alcohols that can be obtained from waste or lignocellulosic materials with advanced production techniques may play an important role in the future. This work focuses on the effect of the use of butanol as a blend component on the properties of soot emitted from compression ignition engines. This knowledge is essential to decide the strategy to carry out a proper regeneration process in a diesel particle filter. The study was performed in a Euro 6 diesel engine. The engine operating condition used to collect particulate matter was selected as a typical steady mode in urban driving. The blends tested were baseline diesel, Bu10D (10% butanol and 90% diesel v/v), Bu20D (20% butanol and 80% diesel v/v), and Bu10B10D (10% butanol, 10% biodiesel, and 80% diesel v/v). The techniques used to characterize the soot were X-ray diffractio...