Feasibility study on the black carbon reduction of the use of emulsion fuel in a diesel engine

Abstract

The performance and exhaust emission characteristics of a marine diesel oil (MDO) and a water emulsion fuel were analyzed in this study. Because an experiment with a ship’s diesel engine would have involved numerous restrictions and expenses, a scaled-down diesel engine for automotive vehicles was used for this research. Some differences in basic combustion characteristics were anticipated because the automotive diesel engine was designed to use ultra-lowsulfur diesel (ULSD) fuel. Therefore, a preliminary experiment was conducted to investigate the differences in the combustion characteristics of the two fuels. Significant issues were observed, even when MDO was used in the automotive diesel engine, except in the low-load range. The test results showed that the combustion performance of the water emulsion fuel was superior to that of MDO. Latent heat from the evaporation of water particles in the fuel and a micro-explosion phenomenon resulted in improved exhaust emissions and combustion performance.