Author : Sathyanarayana A, Gurumoorthy S. Hebbar, T.N.Sreenivasa and K. M. Harinikumar

In Brazil, hydrous ethanol is blended with gasoline and is successfully implemented in flexi fuel engines and it has the potential to directly compete with fossil fuels. However, the Ethanol Blending Program of India has not been successful due to non-availability of sugarcane molasses and could not achieve its 5% blending target based on the literature review study. Hydrous ethanol with co-solvent is proposed in this work as a promising blending oxidant instead of energy-intensive anhydrous ethanol in gasoline. This research work also delves into the challenges of using hydrous ethanol in gasoline blended fuel such as water tolerance, fuel properties, and fuel selection. The selected fuel sample 2EW30TBA10, which contains 30% hydrous ethanol and 10% TBA (t-butyl alcohol), and gasoline was selected based on water tolerance of the blended sample and stability. The combustion and emission characteristics of the selected fuel sample 2EW30TBA10 are studied in 4-stroke, single cylinder, water cooled engine, and the performances are compared to base fuel (E0) and reference fuel (E10). The significant contributions of the present research work are the development of combustion model using MATLAB using: Apparent heat release model (Model-1) and Combustion pressure method (Model-2) and the results are validated using modified Wiebe function. There was an increase in brake thermal efficiency by 5% compared to base fuel (E0) and the specific fuel consumption (sfc) for 2EW30TBA10 fuel sample is 290 g/KWh as compared to E10, which is 300 g/KWh and for Petrol (E0), sfc is 360 g/KWh. There was a reduction in CO and HC emission compared to base fuel (E0) and an increase in NOx emissions. The cyclic variations of experimental results are validated using a non-linear regression model.

Keywords: Combustion, Emission, Hydrous Ethanol, Ethanol-Gasoline, Co-solvents, Combustion modelling, Ethanol Blending Program