Fuel 156 (2015) 211–218

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Fuel
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/fuel

Combustion and emission characteristics of diesel engine fueled with

diesel/biodiesel/pentanol fuel blends
Li Li, Wang Jianxin, Wang Zhi ⇑, Xiao Jianhua
State Key Laboratory of Automotive Safety and Energy, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China

h i g h l i g h t s

 First study on combustion characteristic of diesel/biodiesel/pentanol with CI mode.

 Pentanol addition with diesel/biodiesel shows improved fuel/air mixing.
 Pentanol blends shows advanced CA50 and shorter combustion duration.
 Pentanol blends presents low emissions while maintaining higher ITE.

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Pentanol is one of the next generation biofuels that could potentially help relieve the energy crisis and
Received 8 February 2015 environmental problems. The objective of this study is to reveal the effects of pentanol addition to diesel
Received in revised form 15 April 2015 and biodiesel fuels in different ratios on the combustion and emission of a single-cylinder direct-injection
Accepted 20 April 2015
diesel engine. The tests were conducted at a constant speed (1600 r/min) under different engine loads
Available online 28 April 2015
without exhaust gas recirculation. The indicated thermal efficiency using pentanol blends was found
to be higher than that of using pure diesel for all of tested loads from 0.5 to 1.0 MPa indicated mean effec-
Keywords:
tive pressure at the test conditions, which is due to its higher maximum heat release rate and shorter
Pentanol
Biodiesel
combustion duration. An obvious decrease in soot emissions was attained with the addition of pentanol.
Compression ignition Moreover, emissions of nitrogen oxides (NOx) were simultaneously reduced compared with using pure
Emissions diesel fuel at low to middle loads. Furthermore, diesel engine fueled with oxygenated fuel blends can
Heat release rate reduce the carbon monoxide and unburnt total hydrocarbons emissions except for the diesel–pentanol
blends at low engine load. Finally, the strategy with 40% diesel–30% biodiesel–30% pentanol showed bet-
ter combustion, emission characteristics as well as economy performance among all the fuels.
Ó 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction emerged because of their favorable physical and thermodynamic

Increasingly stringent emission regulations and concerns over
energy security have recently led to extensive increasing interest
in alternative renewable fuels. Except for advanced combustion
modes, the idea of using oxygenated fuels as alternatives to reduce
diesel emissions has been studied for many year. Recently, many
researchers focused their attention on fuel design for low emis-
sions and better combustion control [1,2]. Among all oxygenated
biofuels, alcohols have been widely investigated in the past dec-
ades, especially methanol [3–6] and ethanol [7–11]. However, in
recent years, a strong interest in alcohols with longer carbon chain,
such as butanol, whose molecule containing four carbons, has
⇑ Corresponding author.
E-mail address: wangzhi@tsinghua.edu.cn (Z. Wang).
properties [12]. For example, higher alcohols have the potential
to overcome the drawback of low energy density of small-molecule
alcohols and can achieve better miscibility with diesel fuel [13].
Meanwhile, higher alcohols offer benefits in reducing soot and car-
bon monoxide (CO) emissions at constant specific nitrogen oxides
(NOx) emission in a diesel engine [14].
Recent studies found that the properties of oxygenated fuels,
such as volatility, oxygen content, latent evaporation heat and
cetane number (CN) do impact the combustion and emission char-
acteristics significantly. Wang et al. [15] proposed a fuel design
scheme including diesel, biodiesel and dimethyl carbonate (DMC)
to meet the Euro IV emission regulation without using any after-
treatment device. Yilmaz et al. [16] conducted experiments with
different types of blended fuels with diesel, biodiesel, alcohols
and vegetable oil in a two-cylinder diesel engine. They observed

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.fuel.2015.04.048
0016-2361/Ó 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
212 L. Li et al. / Fuel 156 (2015) 211–218
decreased NOx emissions and increased CO, total hydrocarbon
(THC) emissions by adding alcohols. Sharon et al. [17] compared
the effects of different blended fuels of diesel, used palm oil and
butanol on a DI diesel engine. Results showed that a reduction of
smoke opacity, NOx emissions and an improvement on brake ther-
mal efficiency (BTE) were achieved with butanol addition. Hulwan
et al. [18] found an obvious reduction in smoke for diesel–ethanol–
biodiesel blends, where biodiesel was used as a co-solvent for die-
sel–ethanol blends of high ethanol content. Engine tests using die-
sel–biodiesel–butanol blends were carried out by Zhang et al. [19]
on a single cylinder engine and results showed that the addition of
butanol could effectively reduce both particulate mass and total
particle number concentrations. Tüccar et al. [20] concluded that
engine emissions of NOx, CO and smoke opacity were improved
with butanol addition.
Similar to butanol, pentanol is one of the next-generation biofu-
els with a five-carbon molecular structure, which can be produced
from renewable feedstock [21,22]. Pentanol has an even higher
energy density compared to butanol, which could further improve
the fuel economy. In addition, compared to small-molecule alco-
hols, pentanol has higher cetane number and is thus easier to
auto-ignite. These properties provide better compatibility with
conventional diesel engines and existing fuel distribution infras-
tructure. However, few studies on the use of pentanol as an alter-
native fuel or fuel additive have been reported in compression
ignition engines. Yang and Dec [23] studied the fundamental com-
bustion characteristics of iso-pentanol in homogeneous charge
compression ignition (HCCI) engines, and found that iso-pentanol
has higher HCCI reactivity than gasoline and ethanol. Wei et al.
[24], Campos-Fernandez et al. [25] found that diesel–pentanol
blends could significantly reduce both the mass and number con-
centrations of particulate matter, and improve the brake thermal
efficiency without adverse influences on combustion with respect
to the diesel fuel. Besides, several fundamental experimental
[26,27] and modeling studies [28] for pentanol combustion also
drew many researchers’ attention recently.
The objective of this research is to evaluate the potential of add-
ing pentanol to different diesel–biodiesel blended fuels in order to
improve the overall fuel performance and thus attain an overall
good engine performance. On one hand, the addition of pentanol
with lower viscosity and high volatility could improve the
atomization quality of diesel–biodiesel blends, and the higher oxy-
gen content in pentanol could reduce soot emission. On the other
hand, biodiesel’s higher cetane number could maintain the ignition
quality for the blended fuels. Finally, a promising multi-component
blending strategy is determined to attain the higher percentage of
oxygen content but at the same time keeping important fuel prop-
erties such as density, viscosity, volatility and cetane number
within acceptable limits.
2. Experimental setup and test procedure
2.1. Test engine
In this work, a single cylinder, four-stroke diesel engine retro-
fitted from a four-cylinder engine was employed. The main engine
specifications are listed in Table 1.
The engine is connected to an electric dynamometer, which is
capable of producing 110 kW and rated at a maximum speed of
4000 rpm. The engine electronic control unit (ECU) is modified into
an open module, which allowed us to flexibly control the injection
parameters, such as injection pressure, number of injection events,
and injection timing. The tests were carried out after the tempera-
ture of the lubricating oil and cooling water have reached 85 °C to
ensure that the engine was at its steady condition.
Table 1
Engine specifications.
Compression ratio 16.7
Bore (mm) 83.1
Stroke (mm) 92
Connecting rod length (mm) 145.8
Number of valves 4
Displacement (L) 0.5
Injector 7 holes, 0.136 mm diameter
Injection system Common rail
Intake valve open (°CA BTDC) 24
Intake valve close (°CA ABDC) 50
Exhaust valve open (°CA BBDC) 86
Exhaust valve close (°CA ATDC) 16
2.2. Test fuel
Table 2 lists the main properties of diesel, biodiesel, pentanol
and test fuels used in the study. The commercial 0# diesel with
the cetane number of 56.5 is used as the baseline fuel. It is seen
that pentanol has a lower CN, surface tension, density and boiling
point compared to the diesel fuel. Biodiesel, on the other hand, has
the highest CN, surface tension, density and boiling point among
the three neat fuels. Meanwhile, due to higher viscosity, biodiesel
has poor atomization property compared with diesel [29].which
could be improved with the addition of pentanol. In this study,
three different blended fuels, D70P30 (70% diesel, 30% pentanol),
D70B30 (70% diesel, 30% biodiesel) and D40B30P30 (40% diesel,
30% biodiesel and 30% pentanol) were prepared at the mixing ratio
of volume. Because of the relatively low boiling point of pentanol,
addition of pentanol into the blended fuels could lead to rapid
vaporization and thus improve atomization efficiency. Since mix-
ing of the higher volatility with the lower one could promote the
evaporation of lower one [30], this presents a fuel design approach
to optimize the spray characteristic of the fuel blends. On the other
hand, the addition of biodiesel with higher ignitability can enhance
the ignition characteristic of the blends.
2.3. Test facilities and methods
The schematic of the experimental set-up is shown in Fig. 1. In
this test, the cylinder pressure was sampled with an AVL GH14P
transducer and recorded with the data acquisition system (AVL
Indimodul 621) at a resolution of 0.5°CA. Heat release and other
combustion analysis parameters were calculated from the aver-
aged cylinder pressure of 200 consecutive cycles. Turbocharger
was removed from the engine and an external air compressor
was used to supply intake air. The AVL 439 opacimeter was
employed to measure smoke, and the light absorption coefficient
k is used for the soot scale. The gaseous emissions, including
NOx, CO, CO2 and HC, were measured by the AVL CEB-II exhaust
gas analyzer. The fuel consumption was measured by an FCM-D
digital fuel meter with a resolution of 0.1 g.
Engine tests were carried out at six steady loads and the con-
stant speed of 1600 rpm and no exhaust gas recirculation (EGR)
was used. Engine load was swept from Indicated Mean Effective
Pressure (IMEP) of 0.5–1.0 MPa. All test data was acquired with
constant intake pressure of 0.12 MPa. The same double injection
strategies were implemented for all fuels. For pilot injection, 10%
of total fuel amount was delivered at the 17°crank angle (CA)
before top dead center (BTDC), and the main injection timing
was 1° CA BTDC. Meanwhile, the injection pressure was main-
tained at 80 MPa.
Considering the lower heating value (LHV) difference between
the oxygenate fuel blends and diesel, the fuel consumption for oxy-
genate fuel blends was scaled with the same LHV of diesel for a fair
comparison, according to the following equation:
 L. Li et al. / Fuel 156 (2015) 211–218 213

Table 2
Properties of baseline fuels and tested fuels.

0# Diesel Pentanola Biodiesel D70B30 D70P30 D40B30P30

2
Viscosity @ 20 °C (mm /s) 4.127 2.89 7.159 5.03 3.2 3.9
Low heating value (MJ/Kg) 42.68 35.06 38.29 41.38 40.42 39.09
Oxygen content (% weight) 0 18.15 11.1 3.3 5.5 8.8
Latent heating @ 25 °C (kJ/kg) 270 308 258 – – –
Cetane number 56.5 20–25 61.7 – – –
Density @ 20 °C (kg/m3) 830.4 815 871.4 842.7 825.8 838.1
Surface tension @ 20 °C (103Nm1) 27.5 24.7 30.3 28.2 26.2 26.9
Boiling point (°C) T10 = 223 138 T10 = 323 T10 = 230 T10 = 135 T10 = 135
T50 = 266 T50 = 326 T50 = 280 T50 = 240 T50 = 264
T90 = 311 T90 = 335 T90 = 314 T90 = 298 T90 = 310
a
Data have been taken from Refs. [23–28].

Fig. 1. Experimental setup.

m0new ¼ mmeasure  ðV diesel  qdiesel  LHV diesel 2.4. Error analysis

þ V biodiesel  qbiodiesel  LHV biodiesel
An error analysis for the engine measurements and calculations,
þ V pentanol  qpentanol  LHV pentanol Þ=ðV diesel  qdiesel
such as pressure, IMEP, ISFC etc. was carried out based on root
þ V biodiesel  qbiodiesel þ V pentanol  qpentanol Þ=LHV diesel ð1Þ mean square method [31,32]. The uncertainty in calculated vari-
ables was determined using formula (2).
where m0new is the corrected fuel consumption for the oxygenate
blended fuel by converting the actual fuel consumption to a value
based on the same LHV with diesel, mmeasure is the actual measured
Table 3
fuel consumption, V diesel , V biodiesel ; and V pentanol are the volume frac-
Uncertainty of measured and calculated parameters.
tions of diesel, biodiesel and pentanol, qdiesel ; qbiodiesel and qpentanol
Parameters Uncertainty (%)
are the densities of diesel, biodiesel and pentanol, and
LHV diesel ; LHV biodiesel and LHV pentanol are the LHV of diesel, biodiesel Pressure 0.5
Engine speed 0.5
and pentanol fuel, respectively. Therefore, all the indicated specific
ISFC 1.0
fuel consumption (ISFC) of fuel blends were the corrected values in IMEP 0.6
this paper.
214 L. Li et al. / Fuel 156 (2015) 211–218

" 2  2
@R @R
UR ¼ Ux þ Ux þ  þ
@x1 1 @x2 2
where UR is the uncertainty of the measured quantity R, xn are inde-
pendent variables with measured uncertainties, and U x1 , U x2 ; U xn are
error limits of measured parameters. The details of the uncertain-
ties was shown in Table 3.
3. Results and discussion
3.1. Combustion characteristics
Fig. 2 plots the in-cylinder pressure and heat release rate (HRR)
profiles of four fuel blends under different engine loads. It is seen
that the combustion of diesel is a typical spray-diffusion combus-
tion, which is controlled by the combined effects of physical and
chemical properties of the fuel. The physical properties of fuel
including the density, surface tension and volatility control the
quality of atomization, vaporization and mixing, while the chemi-
cal properties largely depend on the chemical reactivity of fuel. The
ignitability of a fuel is typically characterized by its cetane number,
thus the ignition characteristic of D40B30P30 was improved due to
the combination of the biodiesel (higher CN) and pentanol. It can
be seen in Fig. 2a–d that the heat release profile at the main com-
bustion phase presents two-stage combustion process for all fuels
at middle-high loads. As the engine load increases, the proportion
of second-stage combustion heat release increased and the com-
bustion duration increases accordingly.
Fig. 3 shows the HRR and in-cylinder pressure of various fuels
under the engine load of 0.5 MPa and 1.0 MPa. Fig. 4 compares
 2 #1=2
@R the first-stage and second-stage maximum heat release rate
Ux ð2Þ (MHRR) at main combustion phase for all fuels under the engine
@xn n
load of 1.0 MPa. It is obvious that D70P30 presents the highest
MHRR, while D70B30 shows the lowest one. Higher first-stage
MHRR indicates better fuel-air mixing process, and higher pen-
tanol fraction in the fuel blends results in higher MHRR of first-
stage. As discussed above, the vaporization of blends spray is pro-
moted by mixing the higher volatility fuel of pentanol. Namely, the
D70P30 has higher volatility and lower density compared with die-
sel. Similarly, D40B30P30 has higher volatility and lower density
compared with D70B30. The results demonstrated that the addi-
tion of pentanol presents better atomization and quicker mixing
of fuel vapor with air than that of the diesel at the same test con-
ditions, which leads to higher MHRR in the first-stage combustion
process. Similar trends for the pentanol blends can also be
observed at other running conditions.
Combustion parameters including ignition delay, combustion
duration and CA50 (position of 50% heat released) at the main
combustion phase are illustrated in Figs. 5 and 6 . The ignition
delay was defined as the crank angle interval between the start
of main-injection and the start of main-combustion, and the start
of main-combustion was determined from the heat-release analy-
sis as CA5 (position of 5% heat released) at the main combustion
phase. The combustion duration is defined as the crank angle inter-
val between CA5 and CA90 (position of 90% heat released) at the
main combustion phase. With the increase of the in-cylinder tem-
perature after the first stage heat release, the chemical ignition
delay effect was weakened while the physical delay due to a higher
volatility and lower viscosity of the pentanol fuel played a major
role on the auto-ignition. As a result, the ignition delays of four
fuels do not show much difference in spite of the different CN at

10 160 10 160
IMEP=0.5MPa IMEP=0.5MPa
IMEP=0.6MPa
In-Cylinder Pressure [MPa]

IMEP=0.6MPa
In-Cylinder Pressure [MPa]

8
Heat Release Rete [J/deg]

Heat Release Rete [J/deg]

IMEP=0.7MPa IMEP=0.7MPa
IMEP=0.8MPa 120 IMEP=0.8MPa 120
6 IMEP=0.9MPa 6 IMEP=0.9MPa
IMEP=1.0MPa IMEP=1.0MPa
4 80 4 80
2 2
40 40
0 0

-2 -2
0 Injection timing [a.u.] 0
Injection timing [a.u.]
-4 -4
-40 -30 -20 -10 0 10 20 30 40 -40 -30 -20 -10 0 10 20 30 40
Crank Angle [Deg ATDC] Crank Angle [Deg ATDC]

(a) Diesel (b) D70B30

10 160 10 160
IMEP=0.5MPa IMEP=0.5MPa
IMEP=0.6MPa IMEP=0.6MPa
In-Cylinder Pressure [MPa]
In-Cylinder Pressure [MPa]

8 8
Heat Release Rete [J/deg]
Heat Release Rete [J/deg]

IMEP=0.7MPa IMEP=0.7MPa
IMEP=0.8MPa 120 IMEP=0.8MPa 120
6 IMEP=0.9MPa 6 IMEP=0.9MPa
IMEP=1.0MPa IMEP=1.0MPa
4 80 4 80

2 2
40 40
0 0

-2 -2
0 0
Injection timing [a.u.] Injection timing [a.u.]
-4 -4
-40 -30 -20 -10 0 10 20 30 40 -40 -30 -20 -10 0 10 20 30 40
Crank Angle [Deg ATDC] Crank Angle [Deg ATDC]

(c) D70P30 (d) D40B30P30

Fig. 2. Comparisons of HRR, in-cylinder pressure of the four fuel blends as engine loads sweeping at 1600 rpm, NO EGR is used.
 L. Li et al. / Fuel 156 (2015) 211–218 215

10 160 10 160
Diesel Diesel

In-Cylinder Pressure [MPa]

8

In-Cylinder Pressure [MPa]

Heat Release Rete [J/deg]
D70B30 8 D70B30

Heat Release Rete [J/deg]

D70P30 120 D70P30 120
6 D40B30P30 6 D40B30P30
4 80 4 80
2 2
40 40
0 0
-2 0 -2
0
Injection timing [a.u.] Injection timing [a.u.]
-4 -4
-40 -30 -20 -10 0 10 20 30 40 -40 -30 -20 -10 0 10 20 30 40
Crank Angle [Deg ATDC] Crank Angle [Deg ATDC]
(a) IMEP=0.5MPa (b) IMEP=1.0MPa
Fig. 3. Variation of HRR and in-cylinder pressure of the four fuel blends at 1.0 MPa IMEP.

80
16
First-stage MHRR Diesel
Second-stage MHRR D70B30
60 D70P30
12
D40B30P30
MHRR [J/deg]

CA50 [°CA]
40
8

20
4

0
Diesel D70B30 D40B30P30 D70P30 0
0.6 0.8 1.0
Fig. 4. Comparisons of first-stage and second-stage MHRR in main combustion Indicated Mean Effective Pressure [MPa]
phase at 1.0 MPa IMEP.
Fig. 6. Comparisons of CA50 for the four fuel blends at different loads.

60
Ignition Delay 3.2. Emission performance
50 Combustion Duration
3.2.1. NOx emissions
The regular emissions including nitrogen oxides, soot, unburnt
Crank Angle [°CA]

40 total hydrocarbon, and carbon monoxide for different fuel blends

30
20
10
0 decreases with increasing engine load for all test fuels. It is
Diesel
Fig. 5. Comparisons of ID and combustion duration for the four fuel blends at
1.0 MPa IMEP.
the main combustion phase. It can also be seen from Fig. 5 that the
combustion duration is shortened as the pentanol addition to the
blends owing to the improved fuel-air mixing rate. In addition,
the pentanol blended fuels have the smaller CA50 than that of die-
sel and D70B30, as shown in Fig. 6. That indicates the center of heat
release curve was closing to the top-dead-center and pentanol
blended fuels have rapid combustion rate.
at varying loads were presented and discussed in this section. At
the test condition of supercharging, the equivalence ratio will
decreases at the same fuel injection quantity. Thus the reduction
of emissions such as CO, THC, and soot could be achieved for all
the test fuels compared with that under the naturally aspirated
conditions.
Fig. 7a shows the variation of NOx emission for different
blended fuels. In general, NOx emissions increases firstly and then
D70B30 D40B30P30 D70P30 expected that higher in-cylinder gas temperature lead to higher
NOx emissions as load increased firstly, then absence of oxygen
and the shorter residence time are the main reason for the
decreased NOx formation at high load. Comparing with the diesel
fuel, an increase of 1–8% in NOx emission was observed for
D70B30 at different loads. This may be attributed to the reduced
soot radiative heat transfer and the subsequent increase in flame
temperature [33,34]. In addition, the higher oxygen availability
and the advance of injection for biodiesel could also promote
NOx formation reactions [35].
NOx emissions were found to be lower with pentanol addition
to the blends at low engine loads. At engine load of 0.6 MPa, the
216 L. Li et al. / Fuel 156 (2015) 211–218

12 0.05

Indicated Specific NOx [g/kW.h]

Diesel Diesel
D70B30 D70B30
10 D70P30 0.04 D70P30
D40B30P30 D40B30P30

Soot [1/m]
8 0.03

6 0.02

4 0.01

2 0.00
0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1.0 1.1 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1.0 1.1
Indicated mean effective pressure [ MPa ] Indicated mean effective pressure [ MPa ]
(a) Indicated specific NOx (b) Light absorption coefficient
1.5 8
Indicated Specific THC [g/kW.h]

Indicated Specific CO [g/kW.h]

Diesel Diesel
D70B30 D70B30
D70P30 D70P30
D40B30P30
6
D40B30P30
1.0

0.5
2

0.0 0
0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1.0 1.1 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1.0 1.1
Indicated mean effective pressure [ MPa ] Indicated mean effective pressure [ MPa ]
(c) Indicated specific THC (d) Indicated specific CO
Fig. 7. Comparisons of emissions performance for the four fuel blends at different engine loads. NO EGR is used.

maximum reduction of NOx emissions for D70P30 and D40B30P30 hence soot decreased because of higher in-cylinder temperature
are 8% and 9% compared to that of diesel fuel, respectively. which is beneficial for soot oxidation and complete combustion.
However, a slight increase can be observed for pentanol blends However, as the engine load is further increased, more fuel is
at high load. The maximum increase are 9% for D70P30 and 7% injected and hence reduces the ignition delay, which promotes
for D40B30P30 at the load of 0.9 MPa and 1.0 MPa. In conventional more diffusion combustion. The soot emissions would be expected
diesel engines, NOx formation occurs predominantly in the lean to be higher due to the larger equivalence ratio at high engine load.
flame region during the premixed combustion phase. Two of the All of oxygenated blended fuels showed decreased soot emis-
most important factors affecting NOx emissions are temperature sion throughout the operating conditions, which is especially sig-
and the local fuel/air equivalence ratio [36]. First, pentanol has nificant at high engine load. It is decreased by 52.6%, 68.4% and
higher latent heats of vaporization, leading to lower combustion 73.7% at the load of 1.0 MPa for D70B30, D70P30 and
temperature which contribute to the reduction of NOx formation. D40B30P30, respectively. The influence of oxygen content in fuel
Second, pentanol has lower cetane number and thus longer igni- on the reduction in soot emissions is most obvious for the pen-
tion delay, which increases the fraction of the fuel burned in the tanol/biodiesel/diesel blended fuels. The oxygen atoms in fuel
premixed region and produce a higher concentration of NOx. molecules can reduce the soot nuclei formation in local fuel rich
Furthermore, the smaller local equivalence ratio associated with region, and have the potential to promote the soot post-oxidation.
oxygenated pentanol might promote NOx formation as well. Similar findings were also reported in the previous studies for
These positive and negative effects counteract each other and other biodiesel/alcohols/diesel blended fuels [18] and diesel–oxy-
could lead to the variation of NOx emission at different operating genate blends [37,38]. Meanwhile, the suppression of soot emis-
conditions. Therefore, the cooling effect of pentanol was the main sions was explained kinetically as a reduction of soot precursor
reason for the reduction of NOx emissions at low loads, while the concentration because of the carbon atom bonded to the oxygen
higher flame temperature and oxygenated characteristic leads to atom in the molecule by Westbrook [39]. Furthermore, The longer
higher NOx emissions at high loads. The results were in good agree- ignition delay of the pentanol blends results in better air entrain-
ment with the experiments results of other researchers [24]. ment, which is favorable for premixing and thus soot reduction
as well [40].
3.2.2. Soot emissions
The soot emissions for the different test fuels are given in 3.2.3. THC emissions
Fig. 7b. It is clear that the soot emissions first decrease and then The variations of THC emissions for the different blends with
increase with the increase of engine load for all test fuels. Firstly, respect to diesel are shown in Fig. 7c. It can be observed that a
at the low load the higher soot emissions were observed due to declining trend along the increasing engine load for all the fuels.
the higher THC emissions. This can be attributed to the lower in- This can be attributed to the higher in-cylinder temperature with
cylinder gas temperature and equivalence ratio. Then as the engine the increase of engine load. In general, the D70P30 leads to higher
load increased from 0.5 MPa to 0.9 MPa, more fuel is injected and unburned hydrocarbon emissions than D70B30 and D40B30P30.
 L. Li et al. / Fuel 156 (2015) 211–218 217

Indicated Specific Fuel Consumption

52 220

Indicated Thermal Efficiency [%]

Diesel Diesel
D70B30 D70B30
210 D70P30
D70P30
D40B30P30 D40B30P30
48

[g/kW.h]
200

190
44

180

40 170
0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1.0 1.1 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1.0 1.1
Indicated mean effective pressure [MPa] Indicated mean effective pressure [MPa]
(a) Indicated thermal efficiency (b) Indicated specific fuel consumption
Fig. 8. Comparisons of fuel economy for the four fuel blends at different engine loads. NO EGR is used.

The D70P30 blends have lower cetane number compared with the Fig. 2 shows, the lower negative work at the pilot-injection com-
other fuel, which results in longer ignition delay and thus lead to a bustion stage due to the longer ignition delay also accounts for
broader lean combustion zone and quenching effect. Meanwhile, the better ITE for pentanol blends. ISFC does not show much differ-
the higher heat of evaporation of D70P30 also has an influence ence between D70B30 and diesel fuels. From this it can be inter-
on THC emissions. Moreover, the oxygenated fuel blends show preted that the addition of biodiesel will not deteriorate thermal
lower HC emissions than that of the diesel fuel over most of the efficiency.
load range. The characteristics of oxygen content which favors
the oxidation of unburned hydrocarbon will be the main reason. 4. Conclusions
Particularly, the D40B30P30 shows the lowest value of THC
emissions compared to other test fuels, which might be due to In this work, different diesel–biodiesel–pentanol blended fuels
the highest oxygen content that causes better oxidation among were investigated in terms of combustion, emission characteristics
the test fuels. On the other hand, the improvement of ignition char- and economy performance in a single cylinder direct injection
acteristics associated with the addition of biodiesel with high compression ignition engine. Pentanol is used to improve the spray
cetane number might be another reason. characteristic and oxygen content of the blended fuels, which is
beneficial for the fuel–air mixture formation and soot reduction.
3.2.4. CO emissions In addition, the diesel–biodiesel–pentanol blended fuels has the
The formation of CO is mainly due to incomplete combustion advantage of the possibility to maintain the proper ignition charac-
and controlled primarily by the fuel/air equivalence ratio. Fig. 7d teristics because of the addition of high ignitability biodiesel.
describes the effect of using oxygenated fuel blends on CO emis- Overall, the fuel blends with pentanol addition shows shorter com-
sions at different loads. Similarly to HC emissions, it can be bustion duration and higher MHRR during the main combustion
observed that the CO emissions decrease with increasing engine phase. Higher ITE and lower ISFC were also observed for the pen-
load because of the increased in-cylinder gas temperature. tanol blends. Soot emissions decreased with the addition of pen-
Besides, as discussed above, due to the longer ignition delay and tanol and the NOx emissions decreased simultaneously at low-
higher heat of evaporation of D70P30, the mixing process of pilot middle load while increased at high load compared to the diesel
injected fuel and air is improved, and some of the fuel will enter fuel. The THC emission decreased for all the oxygenated blended
over-lean or over-low temperature regions at the pilot-injection fuels except for D70P30 at low engine loads, and the CO emissions
combustion phase. Results in more CO emissions for D70P30 at also increased slightly only for D70P30 at the low engine load.
low load. At high load of 1.0 MPa, the CO emissions for D70P30, It can be concluded that the pentanol addition can effectively
D70B30, and D40B30P30 were found to be 43%, 54.8% and 55% reduce the soot and CO emissions without a serious impact on
lower than that of diesel fuel. The oxygenated fuels provide higher NOx and THC emissions over a wide load range at the test condi-
local oxygen concentration which could make an important contri- tions. Meanwhile, higher ITE and lower ISFC were noticed for pen-
bution to CO reduction. Sharon [17] also obtained decreased CO tanol blends due to the improved combustion. It is believed that
emissions with diesel–used palm oil–butanol blends. pentanol will be a promising oxygenated alternative to achieve
high-efficiency and low-emission combustion for future compres-
sion ignition engines.
3.3. Fuel Economy
Acknowledgment
Fig. 8 shows the indicated thermal efficiency (ITE) and corrected
ISFC profiles for all fuel blends under different engine loads. It can
This work was sponsored by the Ministry of Science and
be observed that ITE for all fuels in general decrease with increas-
Technology of China through the China–Singapore Project
ing of the engine load because of the higher equivalence ratio and
2012DFG61960 and the Project of the National Key Basic
longer combustion duration, while the curves of ISFC exhibit a
Research Plan (Chinese ‘‘973’’ Plan) under Grant No.
reverse trend as the load increases. Furthermore, the blended fuels
2013CB228404.
mixed with pentanol present higher fuel efficiency than that of the
diesel. As discussed above, the first main reason is more efficient
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