effect of diesel-ethanol blends on performance of a diesel engine at different injection pressures

Environmental concerns and limited amount of petroleum fuels have caused interests in the development of alternative fuels for internal combustion (IC) engines. This paper presents a report on the performance of a diesel engine using blends of n-butanol and ethanol with diesel with various blending ratios. The purpose of this is to find the optimum percentage of ethanol that gives simultaneously better performance and lower emissions. The experiments were conducted on a Direct Injection diesel engine using 0% (neat diesel fuel), 10% (Z5E10D85), 15% (Z5E15D80), 20% (Z5E20D75), and 25% (Z5E25D70) ethanol-diesel blended fuels with n-butanol as additive. Experimental tests were carried out to study the performance and emissions of the engine fuelled with the blends compared with those fuelled by diesel. The test results show that the smoke emissions from the engine fuelled by the blends were lower than that fuelled by diesel. The fuel consumptions of the engine fuelled by the blends were higher compared with those fuelled by pure diesel. In case of mechanical efficiency blends has higher mechanical efficiency when compared with diesel. The tests were conducted at two injection pressures 180 bars and 240bar. The engine ran well at both the conditions with all the fuels.