Performance, combustion and emissions analyses of a single-cylinder stationary compression ignition engine powered by Mesua Ferrea Linn oil-ethanol-diesel blend

In this research work, ethanol is utilized as an additive in the fuel blend MF20 that consists of 20% Mesua Ferrea Linn (MF) vegetable oil (VO) and 80% diesel by volume. Ethanol is added 5 and 10% by volume to MF20. Experiments are conducted at various engine brake mean effective pressure (BMEP) to study the effect of ethanol on performance, combustion and emissions of a single-cylinder stationary compression ignition (CI) diesel engine. The use of ethanol has shown an improvement in the performance of engine as comparison to MF20. Through the blending of ethanol by 10% in the MF20 blend, the brake thermal efficiency (BTE) of engine improves from 11.1 to 11.5%, 22.3 to 22.5% and 27.2 to 27.7% at 0.4, 1.2 and 2.1 bar engine BMEP, respectively. The CO emission of MF20 reduces and NOx rises with the blending of ethanol. The study reveals the prospects of replacing the fossil diesel with the renewable fuels in the form of VO and ethanol.