Applied Thermal Engineering 156 (2019) 209–219

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Applied Thermal Engineering

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/apthermeng

Research Paper

Evaluation of engine combustion and exhaust emissions characteristics using T

diesel/butanol blended fuel
I.M. Yusri , Rizalman Mamat, M.K. Akasyah, M.F. Jamlos, A.F. Yusop
⁎

Faculty of Mechanical and Mechatronic Engineering, Universiti Malaysia Pahang, 26600 Pekan, Malaysia

HIGHLIGHTS

• Butanol-diesel blends by 5%, 10% and 15% of butanol-to-diesel fuels.

• Increase of butanol in diesel fuels, resulted in a decreasing trend of combustion parameters.
• WPS was applied to investigate the engine cycle-to-cycle variations.
• Butanol addition reduced NOx, CO, and HC but produced increasing trend of CO 2.

ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT

Keywords: Depletion of non-renewable fuel sources accompanied with never-ending engine exhaust emissions pollution
Diesel engine from internal combustion lead to renewed interests in alternative energy resources. Alcohol fuel had emerged as
Butanol/diesel one of the viable candidates as a fuel substitute to reduce the use of fossil fuels in diesel engine. The aim of the
Combustion experimental investigation is to study the effects of engine fuel properties characteristics towards engine com-
Wavelet power spectrum
bustion and exhaust emissions characteristics. In this experimental study, the diesel engine was tested at bu-
Exhaust emissions
tanol/diesel percentage volume ratios of 5:95 (DBu5), 10:90 (DBu10) and 15:85 (DBu15) of butanol-to-diesel,
respectively. Combustion analysis results showed that butanol/diesel blends have a lower in-cylinder pressure,
rate of pressure rise and rate of heat release. Moreover, the mass fraction burned analysis shows longer ignition
delay and burn duration. Apart from that, the wavelet power spectrum analysis suggested that DBu15 possesses
high engine cyclic variations. The engine exhaust emissions show generally a reduction of nitrogen oxides,
carbon monoxides and unburned hydrocarbon.

1. Introduction
In the fast-moving world of today, the consumption of non-renew-
able energy products plays an important role in the nation’s economic
progress. This scenario has led every corner of the earth to face the twin
challenges of adverse effects on environmental systems and energy
degradation, mainly resulting from the burning of non-renewable en-
ergy [1,2]. The issue of this energy crisis has received considerable
critical attention by the automotive researchers since combustion of
conventional fuels is a major contributor towards higher levels of ex-
haust emissions and energy demands [3–6]. Hence the recent devel-
opment in alternative energy have heightened the need for clean al-
ternative fuels such as alcohol, biodiesel and vegetable oil [7–9].
The use of renewable energy is inevitable in order to attain the in-
creasing energy demand across all transportation, industrial and agri-
culture sectors [10,11]. In order to support this, governments and
various agencies need to encourage and execute national energy po-
licies in an effort to reduce dependency on conventional fuels [12]. In
diesel engines, oxygenated fuels are capable of reducing engine exhaust
emissions for soot, nitrogen oxides (NOx), carbon monoxides (CO),
carbon dioxides (CO2) and unburned hydrocarbon (HC) as well as im-
prove combustion characteristics [13]. Recent developments in the field
of alternative fuels have led to a renewed interest for butanol as one of
the promising alcohols for diesel fuel substitutions.
There are four types of butanol isomers and each of the butanol
isomer have different chemical structures. Generally, n-butanol, sec-
butanol and iso-butanol is manufactured by the fermentation process
commonly from starch [14]. In comparison with methanol and ethanol,
butanol has higher calorific value and cetane number, hence this fuel
properties make the butanol the desirable fuel additive in the diesel
engine. Apart from that, butanol also has better miscibility with diesel
fuel compared to either methanol or ethanol. On top of that, the

⁎
Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: yusri890@yahoo.com (I.M. Yusri), rizalman@ump.edu.my (R. Mamat).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.applthermaleng.2019.02.028
Received 23 October 2018; Received in revised form 28 January 2019; Accepted 8 February 2019
Available online 10 February 2019
1359-4311/ © 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
I.M. Yusri, et al. Applied Thermal Engineering 156 (2019) 209–219

Nomenclature n-butanol primary butyl alcohol

NO nitric oxide
°CA degree of crank angle NOx nitrogen oxide
aTDC after top dead centre NO2 nitrogen dioxide
CO carbon monoxides N2O nitrous oxide
CO2 carbon dioxides N2O2 dinitrogen dioxide
CWT continuous wavelet spectrum N2O3 dinitrogen trioxide
D100 diesel N2O4 dinitrogen tetroxide
DBu5 5% butanol + 95 gasoline N2O5 dinitrogen pentoxide
DBu10 10% butanol + 90% gasoline Pmax maximum engine in-cylinder pressure
DBu15 15% butanol + 85% gasoline rpm revolutions per minute
GWS global wavelet spectrum ROHR rate of heat release
HC unburned hydrocarbon ROPR rate of pressure rise
LHV lower heating value WPS wavelet power spectrum
MFB mass fraction burned

viscosity of butanol is much higher than methanol and ethanol, there- power spectrum analysis. Systematic investigation of the combustion
fore it can improve the lubricating capability in the diesel engine [15]. stability of diesel/butanol blends is essential to understand the cycle-to-
In the literature, the relative importance of butanol operating in the cycle variation in the engine. Therefore, the impact of fuel properties of
diesel engine has been subjected to considerable discussion. With re- the diesel/butanol blended fuel on the combustion stability through
gards to its stability as a secondary additive, butanol mixture with wavelet power spectrum methodology is the novelty of the study. Apart
diesel fuel provide better miscibility at all system temperatures al- from the wavelet power spectrum analysis, the other combustion
though it resulted in a little bit of drawback in terms of cetane value characteristics also include the in-cylinder pressure, pressure-volume,
and viscosity of the diesel/butanol blends [16]. Apart from that, bu- rate of heat release, rate of pressure rise, and mass fraction burned
tanol is also a good co-solvent fuel additive for waste oil biodiesel, and analysis. A low ratio of butanol/diesel blended from the primary bu-
vegetable oil. However, the concern is perhaps the operating limit of tanol family (n-butanol) was used in the fuel blends in volumes of 5%,
the blended fuel at different temperatures; higher or lower than the 10% and 15% in diesel fuel at an engine speed of 2500 rpm with load of
environment temperature [17–19]. 15 N m.
Şahin and Aksu [20] is one of many research groups that had ap-
plied the use of n-butanol in diesel engines. They had investigated the
use of n-butanol diesel mixture of 2%, 4% and 6% on a four-cylinder, 2. Research methodology
four-stroke turbocharged common rail injection diesel engine. In their
experimental study, it was noted that the addition of n-butanol in diesel 2.1. Fuel preparation
engines produced no significant difference in terms of peak in-cylinder
pressure and heat release rates at all tested engine speed loads. A study The fuel was prepared with diesel (D100) as a baseline fuel and n-
conducted by Jamrozik et al. [21] is among the latest studies that in- butanol-diesel blended fuels of 5%, 10% and 15%, with n-butanol in
vestigated the effects of diesel-butanol blends towards engine com- diesel fuel referred to as DBu5, DBu10 and DBu15, respectively. The n-
bustion and exhaust emissions characteristics. A single cylinder, four- butanol with purity of 99.5% was purchased from the Merck distributor
stroke compression ignition engine was utilized to investigate the in- in Malaysia. Apart from that, fuel properties of the blended fuels were
fluence of diesel-butanol blends of 15%, 30%, 45%, 55% and 70% of n- further measured according to the ASTM standards. The calorific value
butanol at engine speed of 1500 rpm and full load conditions. The re- (ASTM D240), density (ASTM D4052), viscosity (ASTM D445) and ce-
sults suggest that improvement for engine combustion characteristics tane number (ASTM D613) of the blended fuels was measured using
for indicated thermal efficiency, indicated mean effective pressure, and oxygen bomb calorimeter, digital constant temperature kinematic
lower coefficient of variation of indicated mean effective pressure of n- viscosity bath, portable density meter, and shatox SX-300 cetane
butanol/diesel blends were up to 55% with respect to diesel fuel. number, respectively. Furthermore, each test was conducted in tripli-
However, 70% n-butanol in diesel fuel shows no fixed favourable blend cates, and the average values were taken in the analysis to ensure ac-
as it indicated a reduction of indicated thermal efficiency, indicated curate results. Table 1 lists the main properties of n-butanol, D100,
mean effective pressure, and higher coefficient of variations of in- DBu5, DBu10, and DBu15 fuels. All the fuel properties measurements
dicated mean effective pressure. The effect of the n-butanol/diesel were done in the chemical lab in Universiti Malaysia Pahang.
blend also resulted in the decrease of CO2 emissions and higher NOx.
Gürgen et al. [22] have modelled engine combustion cyclic varia-
bility of diesel/butanol blends in a single-cylinder, four-stroke air- Table 1
cooled compression ignition engine using an artificial intelligence Physical and chemical properties of diesel and n-butanol.
method. From their developed model, the engine combustion cyclic Property Unit Diesel n-butanol DBu5 DBu10 DBu15
variability showed an increasing value by an average of 1.5% to 3%
Molecular formula – C14H30 C4H10O – – –
with an increase in the n-butanol blending ratio from butanol/diesel
Molecular weight g 198.4 74.12 – – –
blend of 3% to 15% butanol in diesel fuel. Heat of evaporation kJ/kg 250 585 – – –
In particular, this study intends to investigate the influence of bu- Research octane number – 17 96 20 22.9 24.1
tanol/diesel blended fuel properties to engine combustion and exhaust Cetane number – 51 25 49.4 48.6 47.3
Lower heating value kg/m3 42.5 33.1 41.8 41.6 41.3
emissions characteristics. From all the articles reviewed in the in-
Viscosity (at 25 °C) mPa·s 2.419 2.593 2.428 2.4364 2.445
troduction part, as far as the author is concerned, it is believed that the Density kg/m3 847 812.6 845.3 843.6 841.8
effects of fuel properties on engine stability have yet to be explored in Carbon content % 85 64.8 – – –
great detail exclusively on effects of diesel/butanol fuel properties Hydrogen content % 15 13.6 – – –
characteristics towards engine combustion stability through wavelet Oxygen content % 0 21.6 – – –

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I.M. Yusri, et al. Applied Thermal Engineering 156 (2019) 209–219

2.2. Experimental setup Table 2

Description of engine parameters and their corresponding
The tested fuels were then used in the four-cylinder, four-stroke values.
turbocharged Isuzu diesel engine. The experimental schematic diagram Engine parameters Value
consists of an engine dynamometer, fuel flow rate, fuel tanks, cooling
water tank for the engine and dynamometer, exhaust gas analyzer, and Model Isuzu 4JJ1
Bore (mm) 95.4
intake air flow meter as shown in Fig. 1, which indicates the schematic
Stroke (mm) 104.9
diagram of the experimental setup. Basically, the engine has a com- Displacement (L) 2.999 L
pression ratio of 17.5 with engine displacement of 2.999 L. The engine Number of cylinders 4 in-line
specifications are given in Table 2. The engine was coupled with an Compression ratio 17.5
Fuel system Common rail
eddy current dynamometer model ECB-200F from Dynalec Controls
with a capacity to hold the engine below 150 kW. The engine speed and
load were controlled with a throttle position controller. A Kistler 6041A
of HC)2] = Square root[(1.50)2 + (1.30)2 + (1.21)2 + (0.89)2
water-cooled type ThermoComp transducer with a capability to mea-
+ (0.03) + (1.59) + (2.57)2 + (1.91)2 + (1.50)2] = 4.61%.
2 2
sure in-cylinder pressure in the range of 0–250 bars and a sensitivity of
20 pC/bar were used and the in-cylinder pressure data were collected
2.4. Wavelet transform analysis
for 1000 consecutive engine cycles. The crank angle signal was ac-
quired with a Kistler 2613B1 crank angle encoder, and the pressure and
Analysis of wavelet transform is a common method to measure the
crank angle information was recorded using a DEWE combustion ana-
variation in a time series of non-stationary data. With this analysis, the
lyzed data acquisition system. The exhaust gas analyzer determined the
combustion variability can be decomposed into frequency and time
exhaust constituents such as NOx, CO, CO2 and HC. The accuracy of the
series. A wavelet can be expressed as a function, which has a zero mean
exhaust gas concentration has been described in Table A1.
and finite energy. A continuous wavelet transform (CWT) for a wavelet
function (t ) can be expressed as Eq. (1) [24].
2.3. Uncertainty analysis
1 t b
CWT (a , b) = x (t ) , a, b R, a 0
|a| a (1)
The uncertainty analysis of measured blended fuel properties and
engine exhaust emissions are adopted based on Yusoff et al. [23]. The where (t ) and (t ) is the mother wavelet and its conjugate, x (t ) is
overall calculated uncertainty was determined using the following the continuous signal, and a and b represent scaling and translating
Equation: A sample calculation of the uncertainty is provided in the parameters.
Appendix A. The average value was used to calculate the overall un- In order to examine the cycle-to-cycle variations, characteristics of
certainty. The formula of overall uncertainty = Square root [(un- the butanol in a diesel blended fuel GWS (global wavelet spectrum) and
certainty of cetane number)2 + (uncertainty of LHV)2 + (Un- WPS (wavelet power spectrum) are used. The modulus square of CWT
certainty of viscosity)2 + (uncertainty of density)2 + (Uncertainty of signifies the signal energy magnitude at a scale ‘a ’ at location of ‘n ’.
NOx)2 + (Uncertainty of CO)2 + (Uncertainty of CO2)2 + (Uncertainty WPS is normalized by dividing with ‘ 2 ’ therefore, the power to the

Fuel tank

Engine water cooler

Dyno cooling tower
150 kW
Dynamometer
Exhaust
system

Air intake
system

Fuel flow meter

Engine Engine room

Gas analyser

Dyno control Fuel data

Combustion Temperature
panel
analyser analyser
Data acquisition system Control room
Fig. 1. Schematic diagram of the experimental setup.

211
I.M. Yusri, et al. Applied Thermal Engineering 156 (2019) 209–219

white noise is attained [25]. Henceforth, the data is normalised using maximum pressure value as well as cyclic variation investigation
Eq. (2) as follows: through wavelet power spectrum analysis. Engine combustion char-
acteristics for diesel and butanol/diesel blends were compared at a
|CWTn (a)| 2
WPSn = medium engine speed of 2500 rpm with 15 N m load. Fig. 2(a) show the
2 (2)
in-cylinder pressure profiles and (b) pressure-volume profiles. All the
GWS is described as time average and denoted as ‘WS ’. Peak location used fuels were between 9.2 °CA to 11.2 °CA after top dead centre
in GWS is the highest periodicities at the particular given time series. (aTDC). D100 fuel indicated a maximum peak of in-cylinder pressure
Therefore, the formula is as Eq. (3). profiles with 41 bar at 12 °CA aTDC, while DBu5 unveiled a lower
N
maximum pressure of 40.9 bar followed by DBu10 and DBu15, which is
1 40.2 and 40.1, respectively, at 11.2 °CA, 10.8 aTDC for a particular
GWS = WS = |CWT (a)|2
N n=1 (3) engine speed operating condition. The pressure-volume diagram shows
two engine cycles that signify the first and second strokes where the
engine fuel was compacted, combusted and expanded. Following the
3. Results and discussions first and second stroke, third and fourth engine cycles, denoted as the
transferred gas throughout the exhaust valve, and the engine cylinder
3.1. Effects of engine combustion characteristics block will be filled with fresh air again. The engine work output was
based on the engine power and pumping loop. From Fig. 8(b), D100 has
The engine combustion pressure profile is directly influenced based a larger power loop area than DBu5, DBu10 and DBu15, therefore more
on their fuel properties characteristics and its premixed combustion engine work was needed to overcome the frictional and pumping losses
phase. This condition is controlled by the spray characteristics and ig- of the engine. Even though all the blended fuels yield lower power
nition delay period which can determined based on mass fraction output compared to D100 fuels, lower ratios of butanol/diesel blends
burned analysis. The engine combustion behaviour was determined by are capable of recovering almost similar positive engine power com-
means of in-cylinder pressure, pressure-volume, rate of heat release, pared to D100 fuels, especially for DBu5. Accessing higher ratio of
rate of pressure rise, mass fraction burned, start and end of combustion,

(a) 45
43
40 D100 41
DBu5 39
35
In-cylinder pressure (bar)

DBu10 Zoom in 37
30 area at 35
DBu15 peak -20 0 20 40
pressure
25

20

15

10

0
-100 -80 -60 -40 -20 0 20 40 60 80 100
Crank angle (°CA)

(b) 45
40 43
Zoom in D100
41
In-cylinder pressure (bar)

35 area at 39 DBu5
peak 37 DBu10
30
pressure 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 DBu15
25

20
power loop
15

10 pumping loop
5

0
0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900
Volume (cm³)
Fig. 2. (a) In-cylinder pressure profiles for butanol/diesel blends and (b) in-cylinder pressure-volume diagram profiles for butanol/diesel blends.

212
I.M. Yusri, et al.
butanol in diesel resulted in a reduction of lower calorific value as
shown in Table 1, consequently producing lower engine power output.
Fig. 3 presents the rate of pressure rise (ROPR) at 2500 rpm with
15 N m load for the tested fuels. These results were obtained from the
first derivation based on engine in-cylinder pressure associated with the
operation of the engine. High values of ROPR mainly reflects a large
possible amount of fuel combusted in premixed combustion stage. The
focus of this analysis is at the peak of ROPR. It can be observed that
each tested fuel has different values of peak ROPR. Changes in butanol
content in diesel fuel resulted in lower peaks of ROPR. In this study, it
was seen that the maximum peak of ROPR was by D100, followed by
DBu5, DBu10 and DBu15 and the observed data indicates 1.06 bar/°CA,
1.01 bar/°CA, 0.98 bar/°CA and 0.97 bar/°CA, respectively. Generally,
the blended fuels produced lower maximum value of ROPR. This
finding suggests that the lower cetane number (Table 1) of butanol
results in reduction of maximum value of ROPR with respect to increase
of butanol percentage in diesel fuels.
Fig. 4 shows the rate of heat release (ROHR) profiles for the different
types of tested fuels at engine speed of 2500 rpm with 15 N m load. The
ROHR behaviour relies on the physicochemical properties, instantaneous
in-cylinder pressure and cylinder volume travelled by the piston in the
engine block. It is apparent that ROHR for all the tested fuels featured
inconsistencies between one and another type of tested fuel. These irre-
gularities are due to the uncontrollable parameters during the combustion
phenomenon. However, by focusing on the peak value of ROHR for the
different blends through the zoomed-in graph, it is clear that the max-
imum ROHR is 0.972 kJ/°CA, 0.971 kJ/°CA, 0.905 kJ/°CA, and 0.88 kJ/
°CA for D100, DBu5, DBu10 and DBu15, respectively. An interesting fact
in this data is that the ROHR peaks decrease as the butanol fraction in
diesel fuels increase. These differences in maximum value of ROHR can be
explained based on Fig. 13. Shorter combustion duration of CA10–90% for
butanol/diesel blends produce lower accumulation of the fuel. Thus,
premixed combustion heat release is higher for D100, which is subjected
to higher ROHR compared to all of the blended fuels.
Fig. 5 demonstrates the mass fraction burned (MFB) against engine
crank angle analysis at engine speed of 2500 rpm for the tested fuels over
1000 engine consecutive cycles. The conversion of energy during the in-
itial start of combustion to the end of the combustion can be explained
based on mass fraction burned analysis. The MFB for each of the tested
fuels is normalized with a percentage scale from 0 to 100%. Changes in the
MFB phases can be used to present the tested fuel ignition delay and burn
duration. The MFB percentage values for all the tested fuels indicated a
similar trend, but there was a slight observable difference that is further
discussed in the following figures. The start of ignition is set at −20
°before top dead centre. From the zoom-in area based on the graph, ig-
nition delay lasted at −11.6 °CA, −10 °CA, −8.4 °CA and −6.6 °CA, for
D100, DBu5, DBu10 and DBu15, respectively. It was also observed that the
mass fraction burned value for the blends with high concentration of bu-
tanol completed the combustion later than the rest of the tested fuels by
37 °CA, 30.1 °CA, 28 °CA and 26 °CA, for DBu15, DBu10m DBu5 and D100,
respectively. It is understood that this ignition delay and combustion
completion is highly dependent on the heat of vaporization and cetane
number effect of the butanol fuels.
Fig. 6 presents the differences in engine ignition delay duration
from 0% to 10% extracted from the MFB (Fig. 11) between D100 and
blended diesel fuels with alcohols. According to Awad et al. [26],
combustion duration from 0% to 10% is indicated as the ignition delay.
It can be defined as the time from the start of fuel injection to the initial
development of combustion process. In this process, the mixing of fuel
and air are playing major roles in the early premixing process indicated
by the ignition delay process. Ignition delay values were expressed in
degree of crank angle, which defined the distance between the start of
injection to the initial development of the combustion phenomenon.
The association between diesel and butanol fuels is interesting because
as the butanol volume ratio increases, the longer period of ignition
delay take place for the blended fuels. It is calculated that D100 fuels
213
Applied Thermal Engineering 156 (2019) 209–219
produce an ignition delay of 8.4 °CA, followed by DBu5 (10 °CA),
DBu10 (11.6 °CA) and DBu15 (13.4 °CA). The observed rise in ignition
delay could be attributed to high heat of vaporization that takes longer
to vaporize which leads to prolonged ignition delay. Additionally, the
reduction of cetane number from 49.4, 48.6 and 47.3 for DBu5, DBu10
and DBu15 as seen in Table 1, which is owing to the increment of oc-
tane number of butanol reflects the longer ignition delay.
The experimental evidence on the burn duration is shown in Fig. 7. In
the literature, the term “burn duration” tends to be used in reference to
combustion duration from 10% to 90% with respect to degree of crank
angle. It is also defined as flame propagation duration. The burn duration
obtained for D100, DBu5, DBu10 and DBu15 were 37.6 °CA, 38 °CA,
38.5 °CA and 43.6 °CA, respectively. A greater amount of fuel is necessary
to maintain the same engine load, resulting in longer burning duration.
Fig. 8 compares the experimental data on the distribution of the
maximum engine in-cylinder pressure (Pmax) of butanol/diesel blends
and D100 fuels at 2500 rpm with 15 N m load for an average of 1000
consecutive cycles. The Pmax decreases with more butanol in the diesel
blended fuels. The result indicates that addition in butanol ratio reflects
the lower cetane number as mentioned in Table 1. For engine stability
analysis operated with the blended fuels, the engine Pmax cycle-to-cycle
distribution for 1000 consecutive cycles was investigated using wavelet
transform analysis. Through WPS and GWS, the frequency of cyclic
variation can be analysed based on the time series and frequency. The
engine cycle-to-cycle distribution have significant effects on the engine
performance and exhaust emissions characteristics.
Fig. 9 demonstrates that the horizontal axis in the WPS denotes the
engine combustion cycles, while vertical WPS represents the periodi-
cities of the data series. Horizontal GWS signifies the power while the
vertical indicates the period. Maximum value in the plot of GWS shows
the prevalent periodicities for that particular fuel. The red and blue
colours through all the WPS signify the lowest and highest energies of
the energy signal, respectively. The area under the U-shaped curve is
denoted as the cone of influence. Significance level by 5% resulted in a
95% confidence level, which suggests that 5% of the wavelet power
would be higher than this level.
It is apparent from the measured length of 1000 engine cycles of the
Pmax time series that this study has been subjected to limit the periodicities
to less than 256-cycle. Fig. 9(a) reveals the wavelet analysis of the Pmax
time series for D100 fuels at engine speed of 2500 rpm. From the WPS, it
was observed that there was only a slightly strong intensity of variance
during the cycle ranging between 380–410 and 593–615 at engine cycle of
15–30 and 28–39 period, respectively. The occurrence of strong periodi-
city at particular notified engine cycle and period indicates the higher
1.2
1.1
1
Zoom in
1
0.8
area of 0.9
0.6 highest 0.8
ROPR 0 10 20 30 40
0.4
ROPR (bar/°CA)
0.2
0
D100
-0.2
DBu5
-0.4
DBu10
-0.6 DBu15
-0.8
-1
-1.2
-1.4
-20 -10 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
Crank angle (°CA)
Fig. 3. Rate of pressure rise (ROPR) profiles for butanol/diesel blends.
I.M. Yusri, et al. Applied Thermal Engineering 156 (2019) 209–219

1.1
1
1 D100 DBu15
0.95
0.9 DBu5 zoom in
0.9
0.8 DBu10 area at DBu10

Fuel type
highest 0.85
0.7 DBu15
ROHR 0.8
0.6 10 15 20 25 30 D100
DBu5
ROHR (kJ/°CA)

0.5 DBu5
DBu10
0.4
D100 DBu15
0.3
0.2
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45
0.1 Crank angle (°CA)
0
-0.1 Fig. 7. Combustion duration of CA10–90% for butanol/diesel blends.
-0.2
-0.3 blends. An increase in high intensity of periodic band can be observed
-0.4 at multiple periodic cycles especially at 9–60, 32–62 and 125–233 at
-0.5 engine cycles of 185–300, 40–195 and 0–235, respectively.
-20 -10 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
Fig. 9(c) indicates the wavelet analysis of the Pmax time series for
Crank angle (°CA)
blended fuel of DBu10 at engine speed of 2500 rpm with 15 N m load for
Fig. 4. Rate of heat release (ROHR) profiles for butanol/diesel blends. 1000 consecutive cycles. The cycle-to-cycle variation started to exhibit
higher frequency intermittent fluctuations as a result of occurrence of
strong periodicity using DBu10. Accordingly, it is obvious that a high in-
100 tensity in engine cycle around 300–550, 510–800, 620–970 and 725–980
D100 at period cycles of 64–128, 8–32, 64–128 and 128–256, respectively.
90 DBu5 Fig. 9(d) illustrates the wavelet analysis of the Pmax time series for
Zoom in area DBu10 blended fuel of DBu15 at engine speed of 2500 rpm with 15 N m load for
80
Mass fraction burned (%)

at 90% MFB DBu15

1000 consecutive cycles. The WPS of DBu15 shows a high intensity con-
70 92 tinuous engine cycle-to-cycle variation of 0–800 ranging from 32 to 128
91 periodic cycles. Further evaluation of GWS showed that the single most
60 90 striking observation to emerge from the data comparison is that the
89 spectral power increases as the butanol blending ratio increases in the
50 88 diesel fuels. The blended fuel of DBu15 has been found to have the highest
23 25 27 29 31 33 35 37 spectral power, resulting in a more fluctuated engine combustion opera-
40
tion. The findings from these studies suggest that butanol can influence the
30 12 blended fuel due to its higher viscosity (Table 1) compared to diesel.
11
20 Zoom in area 10
3.2. Effects of engine emissions characteristics
at 90% MFB
9
10 8
-12 -11 -10 -9 -8 -7 -6 -5 Nitrogen oxide (NOx) that consists of nitric oxide (NO), nitrogen
0 dioxide (NO2), nitrous oxide (N2O), dinitrogen dioxide (N2O2), dini-
-20 0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160 180 trogen trioxide (N2O3), dinitrogen tetroxide (N2O4) and dinitrogen
Crank angle (°CA) pentoxide (N2O5) were produced during the combustion process of fuel
and air in the engine combustion chamber [27–29]. A number of au-
Fig. 5. Mass fraction burned profiles for butanol/diesel blends. thors have reported the formation of nitrogen oxide phenomenon
[30,31]. The formation mechanism of NOx can be explained based on
the Zeldovich mechanism. According to the Zeldovich mechanism, the
DBu15
production of NOx is associated with three factors which is a tem-
perature higher than 1700 K, oxygen content and the attainable time to
Fuel type

DBu10
form NO before the temperature drop under 1900 K [32]. This me-
D100
chanism can be described based on Eqs. (4)–(6).
DBu5
DBu5
N2 + O NO (4)
DBu10
D100 DBu15
N+ O2 NO + O (5)
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18
N+ OH NO + H (6)
Crank angle (°CA)
Fig. 10 depicts the NOx engine exhaust emissions at engine speed of
Fig. 6. Ignition delay of CA0–10% for butanol/diesel blends.
2500 rpm with 15 N m load for all the tested fuels. The NOx exhaust
emissions decreased as the butanol content in the blended fuel in-
engine cyclic variability. Meanwhile, the weak periodicity demonstrates a creases. Based on the calculation, NOx is reduced by 14.3%, 26% and
lower engine cyclic variability. Other than the particularly mentioned 34.7% for DBu5, DBu10 and DBu15, respectively, compared with D100
intensities, the rest only recorded lower cyclic variabilities. fuels. The decrease is primarily due to the lowering effect of engine
Fig. 9(b) shows the wavelet analysis of the Pmax time series for exhaust temperature that is caused by the higher heat of evaporation
blended fuel of DBu5 at engine speed of 2500 rpm with 15 N m load for characteristics possessed by the increase in volume of butanol in diesel
1000 consecutive cycles. From the figure, it is clearly visible that the blends. These results match those observed in earlier studies by Yilmaz
engine cycle-to-cycle variation of the Pmax started to arise at multiple [33], which showed lower NOx engine exhaust emissions characteristics
time series and period with the addition of 5% of butanol in diesel when the diesel fuel was associated with alcohol additives. In addition,

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I.M. Yusri, et al. Applied Thermal Engineering 156 (2019) 209–219

(a) 65
60 Pmax=41 Bar D100
55
50

Pmax (Bar)
45
40
35
30
25
20
15
0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750 800 850 900 950 1000
Engine cycle
(b) 65
60 Pmax=40.9 Bar DBu5
55
50
Pmax (Bar)

45
40
35
30
25
20
15
0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750 800 850 900 950 1000
Engine cycle

(c) 65
60 Pmax=40.2 Bar DBu10
55
50
Pmax (Bar)

45
40
35
30
25
20
15
0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750 800 850 900 950 1000
Engine cycle

(d) 65
60 Pmax=40.1 Bar DBu15
55
50
Pmax (Bar)

45
40
35
30
25
20
15
0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750 800 850 900 950 1000
Engine cycle
Fig. 8. Plot of Pmax for different tested fuels (a) D100, (b) DBu5, (c) DBu10, and (d) DBu15 at under 100 cycles.

an investigation by Miers [34] concluded that 20% of butanol additives
in the diesel engine will not result in higher NOx engine exhaust
emissions, however at 40% of butanol additive content in diesel engine
will increase the amount of NOx exhaust emissions.
Carbon monoxide (CO) is an important component of pollutant in the
climate system and plays a key factor because of its severe health effects at
high concentrations. The formation of CO in the diesel engine is based on
incomplete combustion between fuel and air. Fig. 11 indicates the CO
engine exhaust emissions produced using D100 and the diesel/butanol
blends at engine speed of 2500 rpm with 15 N m load. From the bar chart
below, a significant reduction of CO engine exhaust emissions was ob-
served for all types of blended fuels. A gradual decrease was seen in the
concentration of CO in the diesel engine by 11.8%, 23.6% and 30.9% for
DBu5, DBu10 and DBu15 with respect to D100 fuels. Based on the cal-
culated percentage, the reduction of CO engine exhaust emissions is higher
corresponding with the increasing butanol ratio in the diesel fuels. The
most likely cause of lower CO engine exhaust emissions is the combustion
reaction between the fuels and air with the presence of butanol. The
oxygen-rich butanol based on the molecular weight of butanol,
consequently improved the combustion efficiency and thus produce more
complete combustion. The findings of the current study are consistent with
those of Yao et al. and Rakopoulos et al. [35,36] who observed that CO
exhaust emissions reduced significantly with respect to the butanol ad-
ditive in the diesel engine. These factors was explained by the author due
to the relatively leaning effect which reduces CO exhaust emissions.
Carbon dioxides (CO2) is increasingly recognized as a serious, world-
wide cause of climatic change [37]. The production of CO2 occurs natu-
rally in the atmosphere and is also a usual by-product of the combustion
[38]. This type of emissions signify a complete combustion [23]. However,
there is a very high need to control this engine exhaust emissions as it
contributed to the major effects of global warming and it should be con-
trolled at the acceptable limit. Fig. 12 shows the influence of butanol on
CO2 engine exhaust emissions at engine speed of 2500 rpm. It was ob-
served that D100 produced higher CO2 compared to all the blended fuels.
However, as the butanol ratio in the blended fuel increases, increment in
the production of CO2 is observed. At engine speeds of 2500 rpm, it was
recorded that the butanol/diesel blends generated lower CO2 by 62.5%,
43.7%% and 23.4% DBu5, DBu10 and DBu15, respectively, with respect

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I.M. Yusri, et al. Applied Thermal Engineering 156 (2019) 209–219

GWS
(a) 8

16

Period (cycle)
32

64

128

256 0 10 20 30
0 200 400 600 800 1000
Engine cycle Power
Low High

GWS
(b) 8

16
Period (cycle)

32

64

128

256 0 10 20 30 40 50
0 200 400 600 800 1000
Engine cycle Power
Low High

GWS
(c) 8

16
Period (cycle)

32

64

128

256 0 20 40 60 80
0 200 400 600 800 1000
Engine cycle Power
Low High

GWS
(d) 8

16
Period (cycle)

32

64

128

256 0 20 40 60 80 100
0 200 400 600 800 1000
Engine cycle Power
Low High
Fig. 9. WPS and GWS of the Pmax time series for (a) D100, (b) DBu5, (c) DBu10, and (d) DBu15.

to D100 fuels. The evidence shows that there is an increasing trend of operating at a leaner air-fuel mixture, which consequently causes the
butanol/diesel fuel in production of CO2 engine exhaust emissions. The oxidation reaction process to occur rapidly and therefore complete com-
cause behind the rising of CO2 engine exhaust emission is the engine bustion can occur between the fuel and air mixture. This finding is in

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I.M. Yusri, et al. Applied Thermal Engineering 156 (2019) 209–219

250 100
90
200 80
70
150

HC (PPM)
60
NOx (ppm)

50
100 40
30
50 20
10
0 0
D100 DBu5 DBu10 DBu15 D100 DBu5 DBu10 DBu15
Fuel type Fuel Type
Fig. 10. NOx exhaust emissions characteristics for diesel/butanol blends. Fig. 13. HC exhaust emissions characteristics for diesel/butanol blends.

0.12 exhaust emissions also could be increased with the engine operating at too
lean air-fuel mixture condition, thus resulting in slow combustion of flame
0.1 propagation during and after the ignition of fuel and air [41]. Fig. 13
indicates the comparison of HC engine exhaust emissions for diesel and
0.08 butanol/diesel blended fuels at engine speed of 2500 rpm. The HC engine
exhaust emissions produced by the blended fuel are much lesser than that
CO (Vol%)

of D100 fuels at engine speeds of 2500 rpm. It was also noticed that HC
0.06
engine exhaust emissions decreased with higher butanol percentage. The
lower HC engine exhaust emissions operated with butanol/diesel blends
0.04 can be explained by the fuel properties characteristics of the butanol itself.
It was found that the butanol addition in the combustion chamber re-
0.02 flected the improvement in HC oxidation owing to the higher oxygen
content in the butanol as can be seen in Table 1. The percentage of re-
0 duction recorded were 7.5%, 16.1% and 30.1% for DBu5, DBu10 and
D100 DBu5 DBu10 DBu15 DBu15, respectively compared to D100 fuels. Iannuzzi and Valentino [42]
Fuel type presented similar results by adding butanol in diesel fuels. From their
results, lower HC was measured owing to the high thermal efficiency
Fig. 11. CO exhaust emissions characteristics for diesel/butanol blends.
shown by the diesel/butanol blends.

7 4. Summary and conclusions

6
The use of conventional petroleum-based fuels is a major environ-
mental problem, and the main cause of depletion of non-renewable
5
energy. Application of alcohol fuel as a fuel substitution for diesel fuel is
CO2 (Vol.%)

important to enhance the contribution of energy derived from agri-

4
cultural-based biofuels in energy sectors related to internal combustion
3 engines. Butanol seems to be one of the leading alcohol candidates for
dual fuel mode with diesel fuels, as it can possibly improve the engine
2 combustion and exhaust emissions characteristics. This study presents
the experimental evaluations of the diesel engine operated with bu-
1 tanol/diesel fuel blends in terms of its engine combustion and exhaust
emissions characteristics. The present study makes several noteworthy
0 contributions to the following conclusions:
D100 DBu5 DBu10 DBu15
Fuel type a. Addition of butanol to diesel fuel have a lower engine in-cylinder
pressure, rate of pressure rise, and rate of heat release. However, the
Fig. 12. CO2 exhaust emissions characteristics for diesel/butanol blends.
addition of butanol in the diesel fuel possesses an almost identical
combustion characteristics as the calculated percentage difference
agreement with the findings of Jeevahan et al. [39] which showed that an only showed a slight decrease of trend with the addition of butanol.
increasing trend of CO2 emissions with butanol content can be attributed b. Based on the analysis of mass fraction burned, the ignition delay and
to the butanol being an oxygenated additive that turns CO into CO2 ex- combustion duration were longer compared to D100 fuels.
haust emissions. c. Analysis of wavelet power spectrum from the time series of Pmax value
The CO and CO2 engine exhaust emissions are mainly due to the in- for 1000 consecutive cycles revealed that DBu5, DBu10 and DBu15
complete combustion between air and fuel mixture combusted in the produced higher engine cyclic variations with increasing blending ra-
combustion chamber. On the other hand, engine exhaust emissions of tios. Furthermore, the highest global wavelet spectrum was achieved
unburned hydrocarbon (HC) is an outcome of incomplete combustion of by the blended fuel DBu15 compared to other tested fuels.
fuel in the engine combustion chamber [40]. The total of HC engine

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I.M. Yusri, et al. Applied Thermal Engineering 156 (2019) 209–219

d. Addition in percentage of butanol to 15% with diesel fuel led to the
decline of engine exhaust emissions of NOx (by 34.7%), CO (by
30.9%) and HC (30.1%), however it was found that CO2 showed an
increasing trend by the highest value of 62.5%.
Together, the experiments performed in this study demonstrated
that the main advantage of using butanol as a fuel substitute to the
diesel fuel is the significant reduction of engine exhaust emissions
mainly for NOx, CO and HC. The reduction of engine exhaust emissions
is clearly one of the solutions to reduce the engine exhaust emissions in
the diesel engine. Nevertheless, it must be mentioned that based on the
analysis of cyclic variations through the wavelet power spectrum ana-
lysis, the addition of butanol to diesel fuel may exhibit a little bit of
roughness during the engine operation as the reading shows an increase
in high intensity continuous engine cycle-to-cycle variations based on
wavelet power spectrum analysis. This research will serve as a base for
future studies, especially for the author to possibly reduce the engine
cycle-to-cycle variations through the mixing with biodiesel.
Acknowledgement
Appreciation and acknowledgment are due to the Ministry of Higher
Education (KPT) for providing the author with the scholarship under My
Brain 15 schemes and financial support under University Malaysia Pahang
Grand RDU 1403156. Sincere thanks to Mr. Muhd Hafietz Bin Yusoff for
bountiful assistance in terms of technical support during the engine testing.

Appendix A

See Table A1.

Table A1
Sample calculations of the uncertainty.
Samples Reading 1 Reading 2 Reading 3 Min Max Accuracy Average Uncertainty Uncertainty
(Min + Max/2) (+) (−)
Min Max

Research octane number

DBu5 20.0 20.1 19.9 19.9 20.1 19.7 20.3 20.0 1.6 −1.6
DBu10 23.0 23.0 22.7 22.7 23.0 22.5 23.2 22.9 1.4 −1.4
DBu15 24.2 24.2 23.9 23.9 24.2 23.7 24.4 24.1 1.5 −1.5
Average of uncertainty 1.5 −1.5

Cetane number
DBu5 49.6 49.3 49.4 49.3 49.6 48.8 50.1 49.4 1.3 −1.3
DBu10 48.7 48.5 48.6 48.5 48.7 48.0 49.2 48.6 1.2 −1.2
DBu15 47.3 47.1 47.5 47.1 47.5 46.6 48.0 47.3 1.4 −1.4
Average of uncertainty 1.3 −1.3

Lower heating value

DBu5 41.6 42.0 41.8 41.6 42.0 41.3 42.3 41.8 1.2 −1.2
DBu10 41.4 41.8 41.6 41.4 41.8 41.1 42.1 41.6 1.2 −1.2
DBu15 41.4 41.4 41.1 41.1 41.4 40.8 41.7 41.3 1.2 −1.2
Average of uncertainty 1.2 −1.2

Viscosity
DBu5 2.438 2.432 2.414 2.414 2.438 2.404 2.448 2.426 0.894 −0.894
DBu10 2.450 2.431 2.427 2.427 2.450 2.417 2.460 2.439 0.880 −0.880
DBu15 2.442 2.459 2.435 2.435 2.459 2.425 2.469 2.447 0.894 −0.894
Average of uncertainty 0.9 −0.9

Density
DBu5 845.4 845.4 845.2 845.2 845.4 845.1 845.5 845.3 0.03 −0.03
DBu10 843.7 843.6 843.5 843.5 843.7 843.4 843.8 843.6 0.03 −0.03
DBu15 841.7 841.9 841.8 841.7 841.9 841.6 842.0 841.8 0.03 −0.03
Average of uncertainty 0.03 −0.03

NOx
DBu5 169 167 167 167 169 166 170 168 1.2 −1.2
DBu10 146 148 144 144 148 143 149 146 2.0 −2.0
DBu15 129 128 127 127 129 126 130 128 1.6 −1.6
Average of uncertainty 1.6 −1.6

CO
DBu5 0.098 0.096 0.097 0.096 0.098 0.095 0.099 0.097 2.219 −2.219
DBu10 0.083 0.084 0.085 0.083 0.085 0.082 0.086 0.084 2.578 −2.578
DBu15 0.075 0.077 0.076 0.075 0.077 0.074 0.078 0.076 2.922 −2.922
Average of uncertainty 2.6 −2.6

CO2
DBu5 2.40 2.46 2.34 2.34 2.46 2.33 2.47 2.40 3.0 −3.0
DBu10 3.56 3.57 3.67 3.56 3.67 3.56 3.67 3.61 1.6 −1.6
DBu15 4.86 4.97 4.87 4.86 4.97 4.86 4.97 4.91 1.2 −1.2
Average of uncertainty 1.9 −1.9

HC
DBu5 85 86 87 85 87 84 88 86 1.9 −1.9
DBu10 79 77 78 77 79 77 79 78 0.8 −0.8
DBu15 64 66 65 64 66 64 66 65 1.9 −1.9
Average of uncertainty 1.5 −1.5

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I.M. Yusri, et al.
Appendix B. Supplementary material
Supplementary data to this article can be found online at https://doi.org/10.1016/j.applthermaleng.2019.02.028.
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