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405
Abstract: One of the major problems for the successful application of a methanolgasoline blend as
a motor fuel was the realization of a stable homogeneous liquid phase. This paper studied the eect
of ethanol as the co-solvent in the methanolgasoline blend in order to overcome this problem. In
this way, not only was the phase separation problem solved but the methanol ratio in the blend was
also increased. The critical phase separation temperature (CPST) of the methanolgasoline blend
increased with increasing water content in the blend, and the addition of ethanol caused the CPST
to decrease. M10 (gasoline containing 8.5 vol % methanol and 1.5 vol % ethanol) and M25 (gasoline
containing 19 vol % methanol and 6 vol % ethanol) were exploited to test the performance, the fuel
consumption, and the exhaust emissions. The results show that the specic fuel consumption of M10
was almost the same as that of gasoline, but that of M25 was higher for all engine speeds at full load.
The specic energy consumption of gasoline was higher than that of blends for all engine speeds at
full load and that of M25 was lower under low load at a xed engine speed. The engine torque and
power output were observed to be lower than those of gasoline, and it was found that the higher the
volume fraction of methanol in blend, the larger the reduction. The hydrocarbon emission concentration of M25 was higher and the nitrogen oxides emission concentration was lower than those of
gasoline and M10 for all engine loads. Under low and moderate loads, the carbon monoxide concentration of gasoline was higher than that of methanolgasoline blends, but under high loads that of
M25 was higher.
Keywords: methanolgasoline blends, spark ignition engine, ethanol, critical phase separation
temperature (CPST), exhaust emissions
1 INTRODUCTION
All kinds of vehicle engines work with fuels produced from petrol. Depletion of fossil fuels and
environmental considerations have led engineers and
scientists to anticipate the need to develop a clean,
renewable, and sustainable energy system. The energy
crisis has created an incentive to study and evaluate
oxygenated fuels, such as methanol and ethanol, as
alternative fuels in spark ignition (SI) engines. Since
methanol and ethanol can be fermented and distilled
from biomasses, they can be considered as renewable
energy [1]. However, when they are used in direct
injection diesel engines, ignition assistance, typied
* Corresponding author: Institute of Transportation, School
of Automobile, Changan University, Changan Road, Xian,
Shaanxi Province, Peoples Republic of China. email: qiooooo@
hotmail.com
406
ethanol is used as a fuel, the damage to the environment by the emitted aldehyde is far less than that by
the polynuclear aromatics emitted from burning
gasoline. Therefore, a higher percentage of alcohol
in blended fuel can make the air quality better in
comparison to gasoline [9].
The objective of the present paper is to investigate
the solvability of gasoline and methanol by using
ethanol as a co-solvent, the eect of the water content in blend on the phase separation temperature,
and the solution and expansion behaviour of the
blend on the rubber usually used in a vehicle. Lastly,
the paper compares the performance, the fuel consumption, and the exhaust emissions of blends and
gasoline at speed characteristics of full load and at
load characteristics respectively.
2 FUEL PROPERTIES
Methanol (CH OH) is a pure substance. It contains
3
an oxygen atom, which can be viewed as partially
oxidized hydrocarbons. The properties of the fuels
are presented in Table 1. For the combustion characteristics, the auto-ignition temperature and ash
point of methanol are higher than those of gasoline,
which make it safer for transportation and storage.
The latent heat of evaporation is 3.5 times higher
than that of gasoline, which makes the temperature
of the intake manifold lower and increases the
volumetric eciency. The heating value is also lower
than that of gasoline. Therefore, it needs 2.2 times
more methanol to achieve the same energy output.
Moreover, the stoichiometric airfuel ratio (AFR) of
methanol is about a half that of gasoline; hence the
required amount of air for complete combustion is
less.
Gasoline
Methanol
Ethanol
Chemical formula
Molecular weight
Lower heating value (MJ/kg)
Stoichiometric AFR (kg/kg)
Density (kg/m3)
Boiling point (C at 1 atm)
Self-ignition temperature (C)
Latent heat of evaporation (kJ/kg)
Stoichiometric mixture heating value (kJ/m3 atm at 20 C)
Octane
RON
MON
Carbon (wt %)
Oxygen (wt %)
Hydrogen (wt %)
C C
4 12
95120
44
14.8
0.700.75
25215
300400
310320
3750
CH OH
3
32
20.26
6.52
0.795
65
500
1100
3557
C H OH
2 5
46
27
9.05
0.79
78
420
862
3660
90
8189
85.5
0
14.5
110
92
37.5
12.5
50
106
89
52.2
13
34.8
407
M5
M10
M20
M25
M30
M35
M40
M50
M60
M70
95
5
0
90
8.5
1.5
80
15
5
75
19
6
70
23
7
65
27
8
60
30
10
50
40
10
40
52
8
30
70
0
3 PHASE SEPARATION
Methanol is completely miscible with water in all
proportions, while gasoline and water are immiscible.
Phase separation may be a problem with methanol
gasoline blends, even at moderate temperature. To
eliminate phase separation, all the blends were stored
at temperatures above 15 C at all times. In order
to reduce the phase separation temperature, higher
aliphatic alcohols such as tertiary butyl alcohol,
benzyl alcohol, cyclohexanol, or toluene are usually
added to the blends.
The miscibility of ethanolgasoline blends is better
than that of methanolgasoline blends, so ethanol
may operate as a co-solvent of methanolgasoline
with an octane number of 70 blends. Figure 1 shows
the limited quantity (by volume) of ethanol, with
which the methanolgasoline (RON70) blend may
remain stable in dierent proportions by volume at
the temperature of 15 C. Table 2 gives the percentage of each composition and denes the name of
blend in terms of the total volume fraction of alcohol
in the blend. At the phase separation, gasoline, which
contains less than 5 per cent or more than 70 per cent
methanol by volume, is said to be more stable, and
when the volume fraction of methanol in blend is
between 30 and 40 per cent, more ethanol is required
as the co-solvent to prevent phase separation of
the blend. In general, the solvability of gasoline in
methanol is greater than that of methanol in gasoline.
Three test fuels were used in this study. The main
properties are given in Table 3. The rst fuel was
Property
M10
M25
Gasoline
(RON90)
41.61
13.97
398
101
38.23
12.8
507
102
44
14.8
310320
90
408
4.2 Procedures
The engine was started and allowed to warm up for
a period of 2030 min. The required engine load
was obtained through dynamometer control. Before
running the engine with a new fuel blend, it was
allowed to run for a sucient time to consume the
remaining fuel from the previous experiment. The
variables that were continuously measured include
engine speed, torque, time required to consume
30 cm3 of blend, and HC, CO, and NO emissions.
x
The equivalent fuel consumption per hour for the
blend is calculated on the basis of an equal heat value
with gasoline according to
mH
ub
H
ug
m
b= 103
p
m=
e
m
b = e 103
e
p
E =b H 103
e
e
ug
where m is the equivalent fuel consumption per
e
hour (kg/h), m is the fuel consumption per hour
(kg/h), H is the low heating value of blend (MJ/kg),
ub
H is the low heating value of gasoline (MJ/kg), b is
ug
the specic fuel consumption (g/kW h), b is the
e
equivalent specic fuel consumption (g/kW h), p is
the power output (kW) and E is the specic energy
e
consumption (MJ/kW h).
102
114
5560
7.4 : 1
Semi-cuneiform type
99.3 kW/3000 r/min
409
characteristics of 1800 r/min, the specic fuel consumption remains almost the same for gasoline and
M10, but that of M25 is insensitive to loads and is
higher than the other two fuels at moderate and
high loads. When the brake mean eective pressure
(b.m.e.p.) is 0.41 MPa, the specic fuel consumption
of M25 is the highest. This eect is attributed to the
following factors:
410
411
6 CONCLUSION
From the results of the study, the following conclusions can be deduced:
Proc. IMechE. Vol. 219 Part D: J. Automobile Engineering
412
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