Combustion and Emissions of a Small SI Engine with Buthanol Blend Fuels

The bioalcohols are an important alternative in the general efforts to replace the fossil fuels in transportation by renewable fuels. The global share of Bioethanol used for transportation is continuously increasing. Butanol, a four-carbon alcohol, is considered in the last years as an interesting alternative fuel, both for Diesel and for Gasoline application. Its advantages for engine operation are: good miscibility with gasoline and diesel fuels, higher calorific value than Ethanol, lower hygroscopicity, lower corrosivity and possibility of replacing aviation fuels. In the present work research with different Butanol portions in gasoline (BuXX) was performed on the 2-cylinder SI engine with variations of several parameters on engine dynamometer. In the steady state operation, it was found that Bu-blends generally reduce the emissions of CO, HC, NOx in untreated exhaust gas and have a very little influence on catalytic conversion rates of the 3-way-catalyst. At lower engine part load, "Bu" shortens the inflammation lag and reduces the cyclic dispersion of combustion. Nevertheless, this advantage disappears at higher engine loads and with higher "Bu" portions. The present paper shows some examples of the most important results.