Advantages of ethanol–gasoline blends as fuel substitute for last generation Si engines

The stringent international emission legislations and increasing demands for lesser fuel consumption and air pollutant emissions in urban environment necessitate substantial and effective plans to improve combustion efficiency of anthropogenic activities. For this reason, all the industrialized countries are energetically developing alternative fuel sources in order to reduce the harmful air emissions and to decrease the necessity of fossil fuel. In this context, ethanol can be used as an alternative fuel or an additive of gasoline owing to many advantages, above all the possibility to rise oxygen amount in the fuel (so reducing CO and HC exhaust emissions) and to stem the depletion of fossil fuels. Many studies have been carried out to evaluate the effects of ethanol combined with gasoline on engine performance and exhaust emissions. This article analyze prospect of fuel ethanol as an effective gasoline substitute, and examines comparative physicochemical properties of ethanol and gasoline and their effect on emissive behavior of SI engines. This article, then, creates a fundamental basis for further discussions and experimental activities on the last generation SI engines fuelled with ethanol/gasoline-blended fuels. © 2017 American Institute of Chemical Engineers Environ Prog, 36: 1173–1179, 2017