Influence of diethyl ether on engine performance and emissions characteristics of blends of butanol, pentanol or biodiesel (neem oil methyl ester) in a single cylinder diesel engine

Biodiesel has become a promising alternative biofuel that exhibits problems like high cost of feedstock, poor atomisation due to high viscosity, stability issues, poor flow properties and high NOx emissions as compared to conventional diesel. Alcohols have recently drawn much attention as a low cost biofuel that, exhibit problems like low cetane number and miscibility issues. Addition of fuel additives, for example, diethyl ether (DEE), may be effective to overcome the problems with biodiesel or alcohols. In this work, the influence of DEE on engine performance and emissions were investigated for diesel/biodiesel blends, diesel/butanol blends or diesel/pentanol blends. Fuel blends of biodiesel (B20), butanol (BU20), pentanol (PN20), biodiesel with DEE (B20D10), butanol with DEE (BU20D10) and pentanol with DEE (PN20D10) were prepared. Experiments were conducted on a single cylinder diesel engine for varying load conditions at constant speed. Engine performance and emission characteristics were determined and compared.