Performance of Diesel Engine Equipped with Real- Time Non-Surfactant Emulsion

Abstract

Water-in-Diesel emulsion fuel (W/D) has been tested by many researchers around the world and reported that its potential as an alternative fuel which can give great impact to the environment as well as energy consumption. However, the high dependency on surfactant for the production of W/D makes it non-effective in terms of cost, and this restricts the commercialization of the fuel. In order to remove dependency of surfactant a device called as Real-Time Non-Surfactant Emulsion Fuel Supply System or RTES that can supply an emulsion fuel without addition of surfactant has been developed. The nonsurfactant emulsion fuel so called unstable emulsion fuel or UW/D made by RTES is tested in a single cylinder, direct injection diesel engine and being compared with a neat diesel fuel (D2). The engine is tested under four different load conditions and with a constant speed of 3000 rpm. The engine testing result showed that unstable emulsion fuel (UW/D) does give significant improvement to the engine with a 3.59% increase in brake thermal efficiency (BTE) and 3.89% reduction in brake specific fuel consumption (BSFC) as compared to diesel fuel.