A STUDY OF DIESEL-ETHANOL-PALM OIL-DERIVED BIODIESEL BLENDS AS ALTERNATIVE FUELS: INVESTIGATION OF FUEL SPRAYS

摘要

Biodiesels have gained interests worldwide due to the limited amount of petroleum fuels. In Thailand, a number of research focus on palm oil-derived biodiesel because of its most availability. This work demonstrates the use of palm oil-derived biodiesel as an additive in a conventional diesel-ethanol mixture, so called diesohol, which will be used in the internal combustion engines. Various compositions of diesohol blends were evaluated to determine properties of mixtures including viscosity, calorific energy, carbon residue, and flash point. Drop size distributions of diesohol mixture were also studied using a laser diffraction technique. It is found that calorific energy of the diesohol blends decreases as the amount of biodiesel increase while the carbon residue increases as the amount of biodiesel increases. The presence of ethanol in diesohol blends causes the flash point of diesohol blends lower than that of conventional diesel. However, drop size distribution of diesohol blends is similar to that of conventional diesel. This work also shows that diesohol blends show promising properties compared to those of conventional diesel and can be used in many applications such as internal combustion engines, power generation, etc.