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Utilization of ethanol-diesel blend fuels in partial Premixed Charge Compression Ignition (PCCI) combustion was attempted to achieve clean diesel engine. The experiment was carried out using a naturally aspirated single cylinder DI diesel engine equipped with common rail injection and cooled EGR systems. PCCI combustion was realized by two stage injection in which part of fuel was injected during the compression stroke and the rest near TDC. The results indicate that under middle to high engine loads, both weak sooting tendency and low cetane number of ethanol blend fuels offer a great improvement in PM and NOx emissions when compared to the diesel combustion with ordinary pilot injection. However, this results in penalties in thermal efficiency, THC and CO emissions.

Ethanol is a bio-based renewable and oxygenated fuel, thereby providing potential to reduce the PM emission in diesel engines and to provide reduction in life cycle CO2. There are several studies which report improvement in the engine performance using ethanol blend fuels. However, most of these studies are carried out using diesel engines with basic combustion control technologies. Therefore, it is doubtful whether a diesel engine fuelled with ethanol blend fuels can compete with the recently developed clean diesel engines. From another point of view, it is important to know whether it is possible to overcome the disadvantages of ethanol blend fuels using modern diesel engines. The aim of this study is to find strategies for fully utilizing the advantages of diesel-ethanol blends in the recent diesel engines. For this purpose, experiments were performed using a single-cylinder DI diesel engine equipped with common rail injection and cold EGR systems.