Low temperature spray combustion of acetone–butanol–ethanol (ABE) and diesel blends

The combustion characteristics of acetone–butanol–ethanol (ABE) and diesel blends were studied in a constant volume chamber under both conventional diesel combustion and low temperature combustion (LTC) conditions. In this work, 20 vol.% ABE without water (ABE20) was mixed with diesel and the vol.% of acetone, butanol and ethanol were kept at 30%, 60% and 10% respectively. The advantageous combustion characteristics of ABE-diesel include higher oxygen content which promotes soot oxidation compared to pure diesel; longer ignition delay and soot lift-off length allowing more air entrainment upstream of the spray jet thus providing better air–fuel mixing. Based on the analysis, it is found that at low ambient temperature of 800 K and ambient oxygen of 11%, ABE20 presented close-to-zero soot luminosity with better combustion efficiency compared to D100 suggesting that ABE, an intermediate product during ABE fermentation, is a very promising alternative fuel to be directly used in diesel engines especially under LTC conditions. Meanwhile, ABE–diesel blends contain multiple components possessing drastically different volatilities, which greatly favor the occurrence of micro-explosion. This feature may result in better atomization and air–fuel mixing enhancement, which all contribute to the better combustion performance of ABE20 at LTC conditions.