Search Results

The ethanol fuel sold in Brazil, which is seen as an option that represents less polluting gases emitted into the atmosphere, goes through a period where its economic viability does not compensate its use against the alternative coming from nonrenewable sources. It is known that part of the cost associated with commercial ethanol is due to its purification through distillation, which decreases the water percentage in the final composition. Aiming to evaluate alternatives to reduce the final cost of the fuel, a comparison was made between the burning results of hydrous ethanol, with up to 5% of water by volume, and the wet ethanol, with 30% water by volume, in an Otto cycle engine, operating with a fixed speed of 1800 RPM and seeking the maximum brake torque in each test.

Hydrous ethanol is pointed out as one of the major alternative fuel for internal combustion engines, because it is environmental friendly (almost zero CO2 emission) and has excellent combustion properties. Recent studies have shown that ethanol-water fuel blends with higher water content (so-called wet ethanol) can reduce the overall costs of ethanol production. The use of wet ethanol results in lower nitrogen oxides emissions at the cost of reduced lower heating value per mass of fuel blend, which may result in less thermal efficiency. On the other hand, the increase in water content improves knock resistance. Thus, this study aims to investigate the effects of mechanical compression ratio variation on a spark ignition engine using ethanol-water fuel blends containing 4, 10, 20 and 30% v/v of water in ethanol. The research was carried out in a SI single cylinder engine, port fuel injected, 0.668 dm3 with the compression ratio modified by spacer rings.

The current quest for clean and renewable fuels has prompted the appearance of several bio-mass fuel alternatives. Ethanol is a renewable biofuel obtained from different agricultural crops. The main production process to obtain anhydrous ethanol consists of crop production, mashing and cooking, fermentation, distillation and chemical dehydration. Some attractive characteristics of ethanol as a clean energy source is the CO2 absorption through photosynthesis during the crop plantation phase and positive ethanol life cycle energy balance. Even though, ethanol production cost is still relatively high when compared to fossil fuels. Knowing that a large energy amount is spent in the distillation phase, the use of hydrous ethanol as fuel, with high water content, can be economically attractive. This paper compares the use of high water-in-ethanol volumetric content fuel, varying from 5% to 40%, in a naturally aspirated 0.668-L single-cylinder port-fuel injected spark-ignited engine.