DUAL FUEL ENGINE FUELLED WITH ETHANOL AND DIESEL FUEL

Keywords: ethanol, diesel fuel, thermal efficiency, emissions Investigation of the possibility of dual fuelling of compression ignition (CI) engine with diesel fuel and additionally with ethanol, which is injected into inlet manifold, was carried out. Due to physico-chemicals properties of ethanol, such as: poor lubrication properties, poor miscibility with diesel fuel in presence of water, corrosion and chemical degradation of engine materials neat ethanol and diesel fuel – ethanol mixture cannot be used in CI engines. Investigation was carried out on one-cylinder, direct injection CI engine with modified inlet duct for injection of ethanol. Investigations showed that: – energy ratio of ethanol to diesel fuel up to over 50% may be applied, – engine thermal efficiency increased, with the increasing load, – soot emission was decreased dramatically already for small amount of injected ethanol, – emission of greenhouse gas (CO2) was decreased with increasing amount of ethanol, – NOx emission was decreased for small load but for high load is kept at the same level as when the engine is fuelled only on diesel fuel. Optimization of the energy ratio of both fuels and injection timing of diesel fuel is being carried out.