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The importance of using biodiesel as an alternative in diesel engines has been demonstrated previously. A reduction in the soot, CO and HC emissions and an increase in the NO emission burning biodiesel fuels were reported consistently in previous technical papers. However, a widely accepted NO formation mechanism for biodiesel-fueled engines is currently lacking. As a result, in past multi-dimensional simulation studies, the NO emission of biodiesel combustion was predicted unsatisfactorily. In this study, the interaction between the soot and NO formations is considered during the prediction of the soot and NO emissions in a biodiesel-fueled engine. Meanwhile, a three-step soot model and an eight NO model which includes both the thermal NO mechanism and prompt mechanism are implemented.

The effects of the physical and chemical properties of biodiesel fuels on the combustion process and pollutants formation in Direct Injection (DI) engine are investigated numerically by using multi-dimensional CFD models. In the current study, methyl butanoate (MB) and n-heptane are used as the surrogates for the biodiesel fuel and the conventional diesel fuel. Detailed kinetic chemical mechanisms for MB and n-heptane are implemented to simulate the combustion process. It is shown that the differences in the chemical properties between the biodiesel fuel and the diesel fuel affect the whole combustion process more significantly than the differences in the physical properties. While the variations of both the chemical and the physical properties between the biodiesel and diesel fuel influence the soot formation at the equivalent level, the variations in the chemical properties play a crucial role in the NO emissions formation.