Recent Advances in Fuel Additives and Their Spray Characteristics for Diesel-Based Blends

• Published in: Energies (Basel) Vol. 15; no. 19; p. 7281
• Main Authors: Haq, Muteeb, Jafry, Ali, Ahmad, Saad, Cheema, Taqi, Ansari, Munib, Abbas, Naseem
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Basel MDPI AG 01.10.2022
• Subjects: Additives; Alcohol; Alcohols; Alternative fuels; atomization; Atomizing; biodiesel; Biodiesel fuels; Biofuels; Cameras; Carbon; Combustion; Combustion efficiency; Comparative studies; Compression; Diesel; Diesel engines; diesel fuel blends; Diesel fuels; Emissions; Engines; Ethanol; Ethers; Evaporation; Fuel additives; Fuel technology; Injection; Investigations; Lasers; Mixtures; Nanoparticles; penetration length; Sauter mean diameter; Spray characteristics; spray cone angle; Surface tension; Surfactants; Viscosity
• ISSN: 1996-1073; 1996-1073
• DOI: 10.3390/en15197281

The spray characteristics play a crucial role in determining the performance and emissions of compression ignition (CI) engines at the pre-combustion stage. With the advent of many types of alternative fuels and their blends with diesel, it is necessary to investigate the effect of fuel properties and various injection conditions to determine the penetration length, spray cone angle and spray area for a viable fuel with similar or better dispersion characteristics to diesel. Hence, this study reviews and summarizes the spray visualization techniques, along with in depth analysis of macroscopic spray properties of various fuel blends with diesel. It was found that higher injection pressures typically led to higher penetration lengths, better atomization with reduced Sauter mean diameter. Liquid properties such as viscosity, surface tension, and evaporation as well as structural properties play a crucial role in spray formation in fuel blends with various types of alcohols, ethers, biodiesel, aliphatic, aromatic, as well as nanoparticle additives. This review compares these fuel additives and their types to present a comparative study with diesel to determine the ideal conditions with minimal changes to the engine for replacing diesel with a sustainable fuel consisting of better combustion efficiency due to its enhanced spray characteristics.