Environmental Impact of Mixing Biofuel with Gasoline in Spark Ignition Engine

Biomass materials—such as crop and forest residues, dedicated energy crops, and plant oils— are recently receiving much attention due to their carbon-neutral emission. The process of transesterification is used for the conversion of triglycerides (the main component of vegetable oils and animal fats) to engines fuel. Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulation has emerged as an efficient design tool to analyze engine reacting flow processes and develop next generation engines. The aim of this paper is to investigate the emissions of spark ignition engines running on a spectrum of blends of biofuels. CFD analysis of the combustion of gasoline-biofuel mixtures is implemented using ANSYS 18.2. The effect of blending different types and ratios of biofuels on the combustion characteristics in Spark ignition (SI) engine is investigated. The fuel considered for the study is pure gasoline mixed with 5%, 10%, 15% and 25% by volume with ethanol, methanol and propanol. The experimental and simulated outcome of performance of spark ignition engine is presented using different blends and percentage of biomass fuels with conventional engine fuel. Results of the study shows that adding additives to the conventional gasoline would augment the reaction rate of the gasoline, reduce the undesired greenhouse gas emission, and improve the temperature distribution in the combustion zone. The analysis also concludes that increasing the volume fraction of the biofuel results in alleviating in the COx and NOx constituents disposing with the exhaust gases.