Influence of gas to liquid fuel on the combustion and pollutant emissions characteristics

Abstract

The purpose of this work was to investigate the combustion performance and the pollutant emission characteristics of gas-to-liquid fuel in a passenger car's diesel engine. In order to perform this study, the test facilities were set up on a 1.6 l four-cylinder compression ignition diesel engine with a common-rail injection system. Gas-to-liquid fuel combustion under a high-engine-load condition was compared with conventional diesel and biodiesel derived from soybean oil. The performance test results revealed that the gas-to-liquid fuel shows more rapid ignition than diesel and biodiesel do because of its high cetane number. The rates of increase in the combustion pressure in gas-to-liquid fuel and biodiesel were smaller than that in diesel, and the maximum rate of heat release from gas-to-liquid fuel was the lowest among the three test fuels. In terms of emission analysis, gas-to-liquid fuel shows a slight decrease in the nitrogen oxide emissions and significant reductions in the hydrocarbon and the carbon monoxide emissions compared with other test fuels. Meanwhile, the combustion of gas-to-liquid fuel indicates a lower concentration of soot emissions than those from conventional diesel but slightly higher than those from biodiesel owing to the variation in the low heating value parameter.