Experimental investigation of a single cylinder S.I engine fuelled with gasolinebutanol blends

Over the past decade, there is an increasing interest in alcohol based fuels around the world due to the ease of handling, blending and the potential of production using renewable resources. Butanol is one of the suitable alternative candidate for IC engines due to its lower heating value (32 MJ/kg) in comparison to other alcohol based fuels such as ethanol (26.8 MJ/kg) and methanol (20 MJ/kg). The present study was carried out to evaluate the performance and emission characteristics of a single cylinder carbureted engine fuelled with the following gasoline-butanol blends ranging from 5%, 10%,15% and 20% of butanol by volume. During the tests negligible reduction in the performance characteristics were observed for gasoline-butanol blends in comparison to conventional gasoline. The emission characteristics of gasoline-butanol blends were observed to be superior to that of conventional gasoline. In the overall picture, the performance of gasoline-butanol blends indicated promising results as a substitute to conventional gasoline.