Engine performance study for solketal-gasoline fuel blend in a four-stroke SI engine

Considering the gradual reduction of fossil fuel resources and their role in environmental issues, biodiesel-derived products have received much attention as fuel additives to enhance their properties and reduce emissions. The present work reports the engine performance and emission characteristics for a fuel blend consisting of solketal, a derivative of glycerol and gasoline. In this study, 5–10 vol% solketal was mixed with gasoline by ultrasonic processor to prepare a solketal-gasoline fuel blend. The blending of additives will affect the volumetric transport properties as well as the combustion quality of the fuel. Some important properties like thermal conductivity, surface tension, adiabatic compressibility, relative association, and intermolecular free path length were measured at different temperatures by measuring the ultrasonic velocity in the fuel blend. Four-stroke SI engine performance was studied in terms of brake-specific fuel consumption (BSFC) and brake thermal efficiency (BTE). BSFC increases by 15%, and BTE shows a marginal reduction of about 5.39% at 28.13 N·m torque with a 10% solketal-gasoline blend. The exhaust analysis indicates that CO emissions decrease and NO_x and CO₂ increase compared to pure gasoline as fuel, the brake thermal efficiency indicates a marginal reduction of about 5.39% for 10% solketal.