Application of Alcohol Fuel Properties in Spark Ignition Engine: A Review

Rapid depletion of petroleum resources had raised the awareness of reducing the dependency on the fossil fuels by means of alternative fuels. Alcohols had emerged as the most competitive candidate among the well-known alternative fuels because it can be produced from renewable resources such as waste material. Some of the examples of alcohols are methanol, ethanol, and butanol. Each of these alcohols has the capability for its utilization in vehicles due to its cheap price than the other alcohol and has similar chemical properties to gasoline and diesel. Currently, only few research papers had discussed the alcohol fuel properties in the collective form of information including adverse effect of alcohol fuel usages and its responses in spark ignition engine performance and emissions. Therefore, this paper is focusing on the physical and chemical properties of alcohol fuels with recent literature data specifically for spark ignition engines. In addition, the usages on the properties of alcohol fuel to the current available spark ignition engine will also be review in this paper. Advantages and disadvantages of alcohol fuel usages are also summarized. This review indicates that continuous research and development still need to be done especially on alcohol fuel properties as it will give greater engine performance and better emissions.