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Abstract
The purpose of this study is to experimentally investigate the engine performance and pollutant emission of a
commercial SI engine using ethanol–gasoline blended fuels with various blended rates (0%, 5%, 10%, 20%, 30%). Fuel
properties of ethanol–gasoline blended fuels were first examined by the standard ASTM methods. Results showed that
with increasing the ethanol content, the heating value of the blended fuels is decreased, while the octane number of the
blended fuels increases. It was also found that with increasing the ethanol content, the Reid vapor pressure of the
blended fuels initially increases to a maximum at 10% ethanol addition, and then decreases. Results of the engine test
indicated that using ethanol–gasoline blended fuels, torque output and fuel consumption of the engine slightly increase;
CO and HC emissions decrease dramatically as a result of the leaning effect caused by the ethanol addition; and CO2
emission increases because of the improved combustion. Finally, it was noted that NOx emission depends on the engine
operating condition rather than the ethanol content. r 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
1352-2310/02/$ - see front matter r 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
PII: S 1 3 5 2 - 2 3 1 0 ( 0 1 ) 0 0 5 0 8 - 8
404 W.-D. Hsieh et al. / Atmospheric Environment 36 (2002) 403–410
avoided (Coelho et al., 1996). Alcohol can react with of formaldehyde, acetaldehyde and acetone 5.12–13.8
most rubber and create jam in the fuel pipe. Therefore, it times then those from gasoline. Although the emission
is advised to use fluorocarbon rubber as a replacement of aldehyde will increase when we use ethanol as a fuel,
for rubber (Naegeli et al., 1997). On the combustion the damage to the environment by the emitted aldehyde
characteristics, the auto-ignition temperature and flash is far less than that by the poly-nuclear aromatics
point of alcohol are higher than those of gasoline, which emitted from burning gasoline. Therefore, using higher
makes it safer for transportation and storage. The latent percentage of alcohol in blended fuel can make the air
heat of evaporation of alcohol is 3–5 times higher than quality better (Rice et al., 1991) in comparison with
that of gasoline; this makes the temperature of the gasoline.
intake manifold lower, and increases the volumetric From the literature review, we understand that
efficiency. The heating value of alcohol is lower than alcohol–gasoline blended fuels can effectively lower the
that of the gasoline. Therefore, we need 1.5–1.8 times pollutant emission without major modifications to the
more alcohol fuel to achieve the same energy output. engine design. Moreover, the ethanol can be made from
The stoichiometric air–fuel ratio (AFR) of alcohol is biomasses. These factors make it appealing to us in
about 2/3–1/2 that of the gasoline, so the required Taiwan. We therefore use engine test facilities to
amount of air for complete combustion is lesser for investigate the effects of various blend rates of etha-
alcohol. nol–gasoline fuels on the engine performance and
Sustaining a clean environment has become an pollutant emission.
important issue in an industrialized society. The air
pollution caused by automobiles and motorcycles is one
of the important environmental problems to be tackled. 3. Experimental apparatus and method
Since using ethanol–gasoline blended fuels can ease off
the air pollution and the depletion of petroleum fuels Experimental apparatus includes three major systems,
simultaneously, many researchers (Gorse, 1992; Salih i.e., the engine system, power measurement system and
and Andrews, 1992; Chandler et al., 1998; and so on) exhaust measurement system. The engine system used in
have been devoted to studying the effect of these this experiment is a commercial engine, New Sentra
alternative fuels on the performance and pollutant GA16DE, which is a 1600 cm3 multi-point injection
emission of an engine. Palmer (1986) used various blend gasoline engine with cylinder bore and stroke being 76.0
rates of ethanol–gasoline fuels in engine tests. Results and 88.0 mm, respectively, the ports arrangement being
indicated that 10% ethanol addition increases the engine D.O.H.C., and the compression ratio being 9.5. The
power output by 5%, and the octane number can be signals of fuel injectors can be acquired and adjusted by
increased by 5% for each 10% ethanol added. Abdel- the CONSULT, which is an engine tester and diagnostic
Rahman and Osman (1997) recently had tested 10%, tool. The fuel injection rate can be adjusted 725% in
20%, 30% and 40% ethanol of blended fuels in a the open-loop control. Results of the open-loop control
variable-compression-ratio engine. They found that the related to the ethanol–gasoline blended fuel will be
increase of ethanol content increases the octane number, reported in the near future. However, in this experiment,
but decreases the heating value. The 10% addition of the closed-loop control is chosen instead of the open-
ethanol had the most obvious effect on increasing the loop control. In the closed-loop control, the on-board
octane number. Under various compression ratios of central unit controls the fuel injection strategy with
engine, the optimum blend rate was found to be 10% feedback signal from the oxygen sensor placed in the
ethanol with 90% gasoline. exhaust pipe. By using closed-loop control, we can
Bata et al. (1989) studied different blend rates of investigate the effect of ethanol addition on the engine
ethanol–gasoline fuels in engines, and found that the performance and pollutant emission under the original
ethanol could reduce the CO and UHC emissions to fuel injection strategy. The engine output power is
some degree. The reduction of CO emission is appar- metered by the eddy-current dynamometer made by
ently caused by the wide flammability and oxygenated BORGHI & SAVERI (FE60-100-150 Series). In the
characteristic of ethanol. In the study of Palmer (1986), experiment, the concentration of CO, CO2 and HC in
he indicated that 10% of ethanol addition to gasoline the exhaust gas are measured on-line by the analyzer of
could reduce the concentration of CO emission up to UREX-5000-4T with pre-calibration. The AFR and air–
30%. Alexandrian and Schwalm (1992) showed that the fuel equivalence ratio ðlÞ can be calculated simulta-
AFR has great influence on the CO emission. Using neously by the UREX-5000-4 T according to the
ethanol–gasoline blended fuel instead of gasoline alone, compositions of the exhaust. The ZFR-2000 infrared
especially under fuel-rich conditions, can lower CO and detector measures the concentration of NOx. The on-
NOx emissions. However, studies of Chao et al. (2000) line sampling of exhaust gas is taken in the extension
and Rideout et al. (1994) pointed out that using section of the exhaust pipe without the catalytic
ethanol–gasoline blended fuels increases the emission converter, as illustrated in Fig. 1. Due to the pulsed
W.-D. Hsieh et al. / Atmospheric Environment 36 (2002) 403–410 405
Table 1
Properties of different ethanol/gasoline blended fuels (E0, E5, E10, E20, E30)
Density (kg/l at 15.51C) 0.7575 0.7591 0.7608 0.7645 0.7682 ASTM D4052
RON (octane number) 95.4 96.7 98.1 100.7 102.4 ASTM D2699
RVP (kPa at 37.81C) 53.7 59.3 59.6 58.3 56.8 ASTM D5191
Sulfur (wt%) 0.0061 0.0059 0.0055 0.0049 0.0045 ASTM D5453
Washed gum (mg/100 ml) 0.2 0.2 0.2 0.6 0.2 ASTM D381
Unwashed gum (mg/100 ml) 18.8 18.6 17.4 15 14.4
Lead content (g/l) o0.0025 o0.0025 o0.0025 o0.0025 o0.0025 ASTM D3237
Corrosivity (3 h at 501C) 1a 1a 1a 1a 1a ASTM D130
14 E5
E10 tration of CO2 emission gets higher. It would be
E20
13 E30 expected that CO2 concentrations at 4000 rpm are lower
12 than those at 3000 rpm. Furthermore, the concentration
11
of HC emission decreases with the increase in the
equivalence ratio. The reason for the decrease of HC
6
concentration is similar to that of CO concentration
C O (% )
80
1200
of 40%, 60%, 80% and 100% are selected for
800
comparison, as shown in Figs. 5–9. We choose the case
400
of pure gasoline (E0) as the basis of the comparison.
0
Fig. 5 presents the influence of the blended fuels on
0 .8 4 0 .8 8 0 .9 2 0 .9 6 1 0 .8 4 0 .8 8 0 .9 2 0 .9 6 1 1 .0 4
the increase of engine torque output. It can be observed
λ from the figure that at lower throttle valve openings, the
Fig. 4. Correlations between the equivalence ratio and the torque output is either increased or decreased by adding
concentrations of CO, CO2, HC and NOx emissions at 3000 and the ethanol content. However, at higher throttle valve
4000 rpm with torque output of 11–14 kg m. openings (60%, 80%, 100%), the increase of torque
408 W.-D. Hsieh et al. / Atmospheric Environment 36 (2002) 403–410
Fig. 5. Influence of the blended fuels on the increase of engine Fig. 7. Influence of the blended fuels on the increase of CO2
torque output (relative to pure gasoline) at 3000 rpm. emission (relative to pure gasoline) at 3000 rpm.
Fig. 6. Influence of the blended fuels on the reduction of CO Fig. 8. Influence of the blended fuels on the reduction of HC
emission (relative to pure gasoline) at 3000 rpm. emission (relative to pure gasoline) at 3000 rpm.
output grows with the ethanol content ranging from 2% of CO2 emission increases as the ethanol content in the
to 4%. Fig. 6 shows the influence of the blended fuels on blended fuel increases. However, the variations of CO2
the reduction of CO emission. It is found that the emission are not as obvious as those of CO emission.
reduction of CO emission grows as the ethanol content The increase of CO2 emission grows from 5% to 25%
increases. This indicates that the addition of ethanol can depending on the operating condition and the ethanol
reduce the concentration of CO emission efficiently. The content. Fig. 8 represents the influence of the blended
concentration of CO emission can be reduced up to 90% fuels on the reduction of HC emission. It is shown that
depending on the operating condition of the engine. increasing the ethanol content, the concentration of HC
Fig. 7 further shows the increase of CO2 emission by the emission decreases from 20% to 80% in comparison
additional ethanol. It is obvious that the concentration with pure gasoline. Fig. 9 finally indicates the influence
W.-D. Hsieh et al. / Atmospheric Environment 36 (2002) 403–410 409
Acknowledgements
References
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