Improvements in Low Temperature Diesel Combustion with Blending ETBE to Diesel Fuel

The effects of blending ETBE to diesel fuel on the characteristics of low temperature diesel combustion and exhaust emissions were investigated in a naturally-aspirated DI diesel engine with large rates of cooled EGR. Low temperature smokeless diesel combustion in a wide EGR range was established with ETBE blended diesel fuel as mixture homogeneity is promoted with increased premixed duration due to decreases in ignitability as well as with improvement in fuel vaporization due to the lower boiling point of ETBE. Increasing the ETBE content in the fuel helps to suppress smoke emissions and maintain efficient smokeless operation when increasing EGR, however a too high ETBE content causes misfiring at larger rates of EGR. While the NOx emissions increase with increases in ETBE content at high intake oxygen concentrations, NOx almost completely disappears when reducing the intake oxygen content below 14 % with cooled EGR. The combination of 30 vol% ETBE blended in diesel fuel and 14% intake oxygen concentration with EGR enables smokeless and ultra-low NOx diesel combustion at higher engine loads (with indicated mean effective pressure up to 0.67 MPa) meanwhile keeping the indicated thermal efficiency higher than 40%.