Regulated, Carbonyl Emissions and Particulate Matter from a Dual-Fuel Passenger Car Burning Neat Methanol and Gasoline

As a probable solution to both energy and environmental crisis, methanol and methanol gasoline have been used as gasoline surrogates in several provinces of China. Most recently, the Ministry of Environmental Protection of China is drafting a special emission standard for methanol-fueled light-duty vehicles. Given the scarcity of available data, this paper evaluated regulated emissions, carbonyl compounds and particulate matter from a China-5 certificated gasoline/methanol dual-fuel vehicle over New European Driving Cycle (NEDC). The results elucidated that in context with gasoline mode, CO emitted in methanol mode decreased 11.2%, while no evident changes of THC and NOx emissions were noticed with different fueling regimes. The total carbonyls and formaldehyde have increased by 39.5% and 19.8% respectively after switching from gasoline to methanol. A remarkable decrease of 65.6% in particulate matter was observed in methanol mode. Finally, on the test vehicle, burning methanol instead of gasoline can help to reduce CO2 emission by 8.8%. It is estimated that 30% fuel-cost saving can be attained if methanol was burnt even though the price of crude oil had decreased by more than 50%.