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The aim of this study is to find strategies for fully utilizing the advantage of diesel-ethanol blend fuel in recent diesel engines. For this purpose, experiments were performed using a single-cylinder direct injection diesel engine equipped with a high-pressure common rail injection and a cold EGR system. The results indicate that significant PM reduction at high engine loads can be achieved using 15% ethanol-diesel blend fuel. Increasing injection pressure promotes PM reduction. However, poor ignitability of ethanol blended fuel results in higher rate of pressure rise at high engine loads and unstable and incomplete combustion at lower engine loads. Using pilot injection with proper amount and timing solves above problems. NOx increase due to the high injection pressure can be controlled employing cold EGR. Weak sooting tendency of ethanol-blend fuel enables to use high EGR rates for significant NOx reduction.

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.