Analysis of soot from the use of butanol blends in a Euro 6 diesel engine

4 Tablas,18 Figuras.
The use of advanced fuels must increase from 0.5 to 3.6% of the total fuel consumption in internal combustion engines according to the forthcoming European directive. In this regard, alcohols that can be obtained from waste or lignocellulosic materials with advanced production techniques may play an important role in the future. This work focuses on the effect of the use of butanol as a blend component on the properties of soot emitted from compression ignition engines. This knowledge is essential to decide the strategy to carry out a proper regeneration process in a diesel particle filter. The study was performed in a Euro 6 diesel engine. The engine operating condition used to collect particulate matter was selected as a typical steady mode in urban driving. The blends tested were baseline diesel, Bu10D (10% butanol and 90% diesel v/v), Bu20D (20% butanol and 80% diesel v/v), and Bu10B10D (10% butanol, 10% biodiesel, and 80% diesel v/v). The techniques used to characterize the soot were X-ray diffraction, Raman spectroscopy, transmission electron microscopy, surface area analysis, X-rayphotoelectron spectroscopy, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC). Among the results shown, most of the structural parameters related to the soot carbon layers did not correlate with reactivity, whereas others such as the concentration of oxygenated functional groups, the surface area (both increasing with butanol content), and the average primary particle diameter, which is reduced with the increasing butanol content, showed good consistency with soot reactivity obtained with TGA and DSC.
This research was funded by the European Union Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme under grant agreement no.640462 (ButaNexT project). Nissan, Repsol, and Green Biologics are gratefully acknowledged for the donation of the vehicle, the diesel fuel, and the n-butanol fuel, respectively. Junta de Comunidades de Castilla-La Mancha is also acknowledged for financing the fellowship of Jesús Sánchez-Valdepeñas. T.G. would also like to thank the Regional Government of Aragon (DGA) for the support provided under the research groups support programme.