International Journal of Engineering Research & Technology (IJERT)

ISSN: 2278-0181
Vol. 2 Issue 12, December - 2013

An Experimental Investigation to Evaluate the Effect of Ethanol

Blended Diesel Fuels on Performance and Emission of a C.I Engine
Mehta Harshal Atindra [1], Sheth Dhwanil Vipulkumar [2], Jat Vikash Krishan [3], Uniyal Soumil Sunil [4]
Prof. Madhusudan C Barot [5]
[1-4]
U.G Students, Mechanical Engineering, Alpha College of Engineering and Technology, Khatraj,
Gandhinagar, 382721, Gujarat, India
[5]
Assistant Professor, Mechanical Engineering Department, Alpha College of Engineering and Technology,
Khatraj,Gandhinagar,382721,Gujarat,India

Abstract alternative fuels for diesel engine have been used.

Studies on the use of ethanol in diesel engines have
In order to investigate the effects ethanol-diesel blends on been continuing since 1970s. Ethanol addition to diesel
the performance and emissions of diesel engine, the fuel results in different physical-chemical changes in
comparative experiments were carried out on the single diesel fuel properties, particularly reductions in cetane
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cylinder 4-stroke diesel engine having a capacity of 624 cc number, viscosity and heating value. Ethanol is a
fueled with pure diesel and ethanol-diesel blends (E5, E10, promising oxygenated fuel. Pure ethanol with additives
E15 and E20) under different loads. Ethanol was added in
such as cetane improver can sharply reduce
proportion of 5, 10, 15, and 20% (by volume) with diesel for
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preparation of blends. The present work has resulted in

particulates. Since late 1990s, ethanol blended diesel
giving a good insight into the performance & emission fuel has been used on heavy-duty and light duty diesel
characteristics of the C.I. Engine using ethanol blends. engine in order to modify their emission characteristics.
Heat of combustion of all the blends is found to be lower
than that of diesel fuel alone. However, the heating values 1.1 Ethanol as Blending Component for Diesel
of the blends containing ethanol lower than 10% are not The use of alcohols in mixtures with diesel is limited to
much different from that of conventional diesel.
anhydrous ethanol, since methanol is practically
Performance parameters like brake power, brake thermal
efficiency, brake specific fuel consumption was measured at
insoluble in diesel [5]. The use of ethanol/diesel
different loads. Emission parameters CO, CO2, unburned mixtures increases the ignition‟s lag time due to the
hydrocarbon and nitrogen oxide was measured by exhaust low cetane number of ethanol. There are a number of
gas analyzer. The performance parameters were marginally fuel properties that are essential to the proper operation
inferior but the emission is significantly reduced as the of diesel engine. The blended fuel is expected to
blend ratio is increased. comply with such properties as per standards of diesel.
The addition of ethanol to diesel fuel affects certain
Index Terms — Ethanol, Blending, Engine important properties like blend stability, viscosity,
Performance, Emission Parameters, Brake Thermal
viscosity, flash point, lubricity energy content and
Efficiency.
cetane number. The blended fuel therefore requires
cetane improvers to be added. In fuel injection pump
system the fuel has an important role for lubrication. In
1. Introduction the present investigation performance and emission
A diesel engine has received considerable attention
characteristics of engine were evaluated for diesel and
because of its high thermal efficiency however; the
its blend with ethanol varied from 5% to 20% is studied
diesel engine is the most significant contributor of
for at various loads.
pollutant which contributes to serious health problem
Particulate matter emission from diesel contributes to
urban and regional haze. HC and NOx emission leads 2. Selection of Engine and Blends
to Ozone formation at ground level. With the stringent A single cylinder, vertical, 4-stroke engine with bore of
emission standard and limited petroleum reserve, 85 mm and stroke of 110 mm manufactured by
Topland was used in the experimental investigation. It

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 International Journal of Engineering Research & Technology (IJERT)
ISSN: 2278-0181
Vol. 2 Issue 12, December - 2013

has a provision of rope brake dynamometer to vary the

load.

Table- 1 Specification of engine

No. of cylinders 1
R.P.M. 1500
Bore 85 mm
Stroke 110 mm
Capacity 624 cc
Output 3.5 H.P.
Dynamometer Rope brake type
Fuel Diesel and Blends of Ethanol
Sp.Gr of Diesel 0.82
Sp.Gr of Ethanol 0.78 Fig.1: Single cylinder 4-stroke diesel engine setup
CV of Diesel 42,188 kJ/kg
CV of Ethanol 29,700 kJ/kg 3.1. Fuel Flow and Speed Measurement
Fuel tank capacity 7.5 liters
A fuel tank with a burette of a capacity of 624 cc is
The properties of various blends of ethanol with diesel mounted on a stand at an approachable height with
were tested on engine described above are as follows: required piping joints. Fuel is fed to the injector pump
under gravity and the volumetric flow rate is measured
Table- 2 Properties of Test Fuels [9] by burette. A digital tachometer as shown in Fig.2 is
used to measure the speed of an engine.
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Sr. Fuel Density CV %
No (kg/m3) kJ/kg Change
in CV
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1 Diesel 822 42188 -

2 5% Ethanol Blends 822 41398.6 -1.87
3 10% Ethanol Blends 821 40609.2 -3.74
4 15% Ethanol Blends 820 39819.8 -5.61
5 20% Ethanol Blends 819 39030.4 -7.49

Blends are prepared by adding appropriate amount of

ethanol in pure diesel. Ex. Preparation of (5% E +
Diesel) blends requires 5 ml of ethanol and 995 ml of
diesel were mixed in flask on volume basis to prepare 1
liter of blend.
Fig.2 : Tachometer
3. Experimental Setup 3.2. Dynamometer
A single cylinder, vertical, 4-stroke engine with bore of Dynamometer having rope which is wrapped over the
85 mm and stroke of 110 mm is considered in this
rim of a pulley keyed to the shaft of the engine. A
study. The diesel engine is an air-cooled developing
about 3.5 HP at 3000 rpm. The engine is rope started. rope is wound around the circumference of the brake
The engine is couple to a rope brake dynamometer to drum. The one end of the rope is attached to a spring
absorb the power produced. The consumption of fuel is balance, whereas other end carries the dead weights.
measured by means of burette and a stopwatch. A The engine is thus run at a „constant speed‟ which is
three-way cock regulates the flow of diesel from the measured with the help of a tachometer. If the power
tank of the engine. produce is high, so will be the heat produced due to
friction between the rope and wheel, and a cooling
arrangement is necessary. For this, the channel of the
flywheel usually has flanges turned inside in which

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 International Journal of Engineering Research & Technology (IJERT)
ISSN: 2278-0181
Vol. 2 Issue 12, December - 2013

water from a ripe is supplied. An outlet pipe with a Heat input = TFC × calorific value of diesel
flattened end takes the water out. Input power = Heat input / 14.34 kW

3.3. Experimental Procedure 4.3 Brake Thermal efficiency: The Brake thermal
efficiency of an engine is calculated by,
The engine was started with neat diesel as fuel at no
Engine efficiency = Engine output /Input power×1000/0
load by pressing the inlet with decompression lever and
it was released suddenly when the engine was hand
5. Result and Discussion
cranked at sufficient speed and it was allowed to run at Experiment was conducted to find the effect of ethanol
no load conditions. The engine was then loaded blended diesel fuel on the engine performance
gradually from no load to full load keeping the speed parameters such as brake thermal efficiency, brake
within the permissible range and the observations of specific fuel consumption, brake specific energy
different parameters were recorded. With the fuel consumption and exhaust emission parameters such as
measuring apparatus and stop watch the time elapsed unburned hydrocarbons, carbon mono-oxides, carbon
dioxide nitrogen oxides and oxygen were recorded. The
for the fuel consumption for 10 cc of fuel was
brake thermal efficiency with different load at 5, 8, and
measured. The other observations recorded were brake 10 kg-f is shown in Fig. (3), (4) and (5) respectively.
load reading, engine speed and emissions were also
measured. The various blends of ethanol with diesel
were tested on same engine in the same manner as
described above are as follows:

1) 95% diesel + 5% ethanol 2) 90% diesel + 10% ethanol

3) 85% diesel + 15% ethanol 4) 80% diesel + 20% ethanol
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Performance tests were carried out on the diesel engine

with different fuels i.e. with neat diesel and with
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various blends of ethanol with diesel respectively. The

parameters to be recorded for all the fuels tested were
fuel flow rate, engine speed, brake load, and the
Fig. 3: Brake Thermal Efficiencies (%) Vs. Blends of
performance parameters were calculated from their
Ethanol (%) at 5 kg-f load
fundamental relations.

4. Computations

4.1 Brake Power: Brake power is defined the power

developed by the engine at the shaft .and here generator
is attached with the engine so, it can be calculated by
the following equation:

Engine output = 3.14×D×9.81×N×T / (60×1000) kW

Where D = Overall diameter = 0.261m
W1 = Dead Weight kg-f
W2 = spring balance reading kg-f
T = Net load (W1- W2) kg-f
N = Engine speed rpm Fig. 4: Brake Thermal Efficiencies (%) Vs. Blends of
Ethanol (%) at 8 kg-f load
4.2 Engine Input: Power input to the engine calculated
as follows,
Time for 10cc of fuel consumption, t sec
Fuel consumption per minute, Q= (10/t) × 60 cc/minute
TFC = (Q × Sp.Gr. of diesel/ 1000) kg/min

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 International Journal of Engineering Research & Technology (IJERT)
ISSN: 2278-0181
Vol. 2 Issue 12, December - 2013

Fig.5: Brake Thermal Efficiencies (%) Vs. Blends of Fig.7: CO2 % vs. Blends of Ethanol (%)
Ethanol (%) at 10 kg-f load
Since ethanol has lower carbon and higher oxygen
The efficiency of all four proportions of blends was content more ethanol in the blend results in less CO in
found to be less than pure diesel. The reason being the exhaust emission. Fig. 6 shows that falling the trend of
calorific value and specific gravity of the ethanol CO as the ethanol ratio in the blends increase, the CO
blended diesel fuel is less than the pure diesel. As the concentration in the exhaust were decreased from
blend percentage increases the specific gravity and the 0.09% to 0.04%, hence in turns CO2 concentration also
Lower Heating Value keeps on reducing. Hence it is decreased from 1.80% to 1.40%.
concluded that as ethanol blend percentage increases
the brake thermal efficiency is decreased.
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Emission characteristics of the ethanol blended fuel
also evaluated to findout amount of carbon-monoxide,
unburned hydrocarbon, carbon-dieoxide, nitrogen
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oxides and oxygen in the flue gas by using the exhaust

gas analyzer at no load condition. Fig. 6 represents the
variation of CO emission with increasing ethanol in
diesel.

Fig.8: HC (PPM) vs. Blends of Ethanol (%)

Fig.8 represents the variation of HC emission with

increasing ethanol percentage in the blends of diesel.
Unburdened hydrocarbons are increase with increase in
the percentage of ethanol in the blends from 47 PPM to
92 PPM due to atoms of diesel and ethanol in the
blends is not mixed at molecular level during
combustion.

Fig.6: CO % Vs Blends of Ethanol (%)

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 International Journal of Engineering Research & Technology (IJERT)
ISSN: 2278-0181
Vol. 2 Issue 12, December - 2013

Blended Diesel Fuels on Performance from a

Single Cylinder Direct Injection Engine.”
International Journal of Research in Modern
Engineering and Emerging Technology, Vol. 1,
Issue: 2, March 2013, ISSN: 2320-6586.
3) R. Senthil Kumar, R. Manimaran , V.
Gopalakrishnan, “Experimental investigation on
D.I. diesel engine fuelled by ethanol diesel blend
with varying inlet air temperature.” Pelagia
Research Library Advances in Applied Science
Research, 2013, 4(1):319-329 ISSN: 0976-8610.
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Fig.9: NOx (PPM) vs. Blends of Ethanol (%) and exhaust emission on single cylinder DI Diesel
engine.” International Journal of Advanced
Generally for diesel fuel NOX emission is increased as Engineering Technology, ISSN: 0976-3945.
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blend is increased the NOX emission is getting reduced. Performance evaluation and emission analysis of
Fig.9 shows that nitrogen oxide considerably reduces 4- S, I.C. engine using ethanol bio-diesel blended
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6) Jilin Lei, Yuhua Bi, and Lizhong Shen,
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The objective of this study is to investigate the engine Diesel Engine Fueled with Ethanol-Diesel Blends
performance and emissions characteristics of a diesel in Different Altitude Regions.” Journal of
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engine operating on ethanol–diesel blends. On an Biomedicine and Biotechnology, Volume 2011,
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diesel hence it will consume more amount of fuel. doi:10.1155/2011/417421.
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These blends can also reduce greenhouse gas 7) Xiaoyan Shi, Xiaobing Pang, Yujing Mu, Hong
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conclusions can be summarized as follows. Li, “Emission reduction potential of using ethanol–
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