Fuel 107 (2013) 866872

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Fuel
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Performance tests of a diesel engine fueled with pentanol/diesel fuel blends

Javier Campos-Fernandez a, Juan M. Arnal b, Jose Gomez b, Nayare Lacalle a, M. Pilar Dorado a,
a
Department of Physical Chemistry and Applied Thermodynamics, EPS, Edif. Leonardo da Vinci, Campus de Rabanales, Universidad de Cordoba,
Campus de Excelencia Internacional, ceiA3, Spain
b
Department of Mechanization, IFAPA Alameda del Obispo, Junta de Andalucia, Cordoba, Spain

h i g h l i g h t s
" We have fueled a diesel engine with pentanol/diesel fuel blends.
" Performance results are similar for both pentanol blends and straight diesel fuel.
" Performance results are better for pentanol blends than ethanol blends.
" Pentanol LHV, ST, VLH,

q and CN values are closer to diesel fuel than lower alcohols.

" The presence of oxygen offsets pentanol reduced LHV and provides better combustion.

a r t i c l e

i n f o

Article history:
Received 14 January 2013
Received in revised form 30 January 2013
Accepted 30 January 2013
Available online 14 February 2013
Keywords:
Higher alcohols
Engine power
Brake-specic fuel consumption
Long-chain alcohols
Biorenery

a b s t r a c t
The use of straight (in modied engines) or blended alcohols with fossil fuel provides an attractive alternative fuel for internal combustion engines. Moreover, alcohol can be produced by bioreneries, thus
reducing the use of fossil resources. However, main achievements in this eld correspond to the use of
short-chain alcohols, like ethanol, while there is little experience with higher alcohols. In this work,
the performance of a direct-injection diesel engine, without any modications, fueled with 1-pentanol/
diesel fuel blends has been evaluated. Blends with 10% pentanol/90% diesel fuel, 15% pentanol/85% diesel
fuel, 20% pentanol/80% diesel fuel and 25% pentanol/75% diesel fuel (v/v) were tested and engine performance results were compared with those provided by neat diesel fuel. Experimental results showed
insignicant engine power, brake thermal efciency and brake-specic fuel consumption variations
when the engine was fueled with the majority of the blends instead of straight diesel fuel. Moreover, statistical analysis showed no signicant differences between the blends and diesel fuel (EN 590) tests. During engine starting, no difculties were experienced and the engine performed satisfactorily on the
blends throughout the entire test. On the basis of this study, pentanol/diesel fuel blends can be considered acceptable diesel fuel alternatives if exhaust emissions and long-term engine tests show acceptable
results.
2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
Nowadays countries are researching alternatives to fossil fuels,
mainly due to the increase and uctuation in prices of diesel fuel
and petrol, a growing environmental conscience and the shortage
of petroleum. In fact, Directive 2009/28/ CE of the European
Parliament and the Council on the promotion of the use of energy
from renewable sources species that each EU Member State shall
ensure that, in 2020, the share of energy from renewable sources in
all forms of transport is at least 10% of the nal consumption of energy in transport in the Member States.

Corresponding author. Tel.: +34 957 218332; fax: +34 957 218417.
E-mail address: pilar.dorado@uco.es (M.P. Dorado).
0016-2361/$ - see front matter 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.fuel.2013.01.066

There is a growing interest on using alcohols as an option to

substitute petrol in spark ignition engines and extensive research
has been carried out [18]. The use of oxygenated fuels involve
oxygen enrichment, enhancement of premixed combustion phase
of blends and improvement of the diffusive combustion phase
[911]. However, some difculties prevent their use as fuel for diesel engines, among them are: (a) the lower heating value (LHV) of
alcohols are below that of diesel fuel, thus to provide the same engine power, more alcohol by mass and volume than diesel fuel is
needed [12]; (b) high percentage of alcohol presents miscibility
and stability problems when blended with diesel fuel [13] and
phases separate on the presence of water traces [14]; (c) alcohols
have low cetane numbers, but diesel engines need high cetane
number to facilitate autoignition and provide little ignition delay
[15]; (d) the poor autoignition capacity of alcohols is responsible

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J. Campos-Fernandez et al. / Fuel 107 (2013) 866872

of severe knock due to the rapid burning of vaporized alcohol [14];

(e) alcohols depict inappropriate lubricating properties compared
to diesel fuel [12,14] and may even dilute the lubricant lm on
the piston wall, thus affecting engine durability.
To solve the aforementioned disadvantages, different technologies comprising modied and unmodied engines running on alcohol blends have been proposed. Pulverization of alcohol, double
injection of diesel fuel and alcohol, direct alcohol/diesel fuel blends
and emulsions are among the most used alternatives [16]. Direct
use of alcohol/diesel fuel blends is one of the most interesting possibilities because of their lower cost and, most important, modications on diesel engine are not necessary using low alcohol
concentrations. Due of these reasons, nding both the most appropriate type of alcohol and the optimum alcohol/diesel fuel blend to
substitute diesel fuel on diesel engines is needed.
Ethanol and methanol are the most researched alcohols to be
used as alternate fuels, although as methanol has very limited solubility in diesel fuel [13], the most common alternative is ethanol.
Can et al. [17] found reductions on engine power of 20% and 12.5%,
when diesel fuel was blended with 15% and 10% ethanol, respectively. Ajav et al. [18] found a power reduction of 5% and a
brake-specic fuel consumption increase above 20% for 20% ethanol blended with diesel fuel. Hansen et al. [19] found a 710% decrease in an engine power at rated speed with 15% dry ethanol,
2.35% Pure Energy Corporation (PEC) additive and 82.65% diesel
fuel blend. Li et al. [20] studied ethanol/diesel fuel blends, from
5% to 20% of ethanol, to nd out that brake-specic fuel consumption increased using all tested blends. Lu et al. [10] tested an ethanol addition (from 10% to 20%) to diesel fuel on a diesel engine.
Results showed that brake-specic fuel consumption increased at
overall engine operating conditions. Bilgin et al. [21] found that
the addition of 4% ethanol to diesel fuel increased brake power
by 1.5%, while brake-specic fuel consumption decreased by
2.5%. Kass et al. [22] tested two diesel fuel blends containing 10%
and 15% dry ethanol and 2% GE Betz additive, respectively and reported around 8% torque reduction for both fuel blends. Therefore,
usually using ethanol/diesel fuel blends, percentages of alcohol
higher than 10% means power reduction while brake-specic fuel
consumption increases.
Large values of both lower heating value (LHV) and cetane number (CN) are desirable fuel characteristics on diesel engines, while
self-ignition temperature (ST) and vaporization latent heat (VLH)
should exhibit moderate values. The value of fuel properties,
including LHV, CN, ST, VLH are established by the different molecular structure of alcohols. Normal parafns (straight chains) have
higher LHV but lower VLH and ST when the number of carbon increases. Moreover, normal parafns have higher self-ignition tendency (lower ST) than isoparafns (branched chains), n-oleons,
cycloalkanes and aromatic hydrocarbons considering the same
number of carbons [23].
In regard to cetane number, normal parafns exhibit a higher
value than isoparafns, monocycloparafns, alkylbenzenes, polycycloparafns and polyaromatics, even showing the same number
of carbons [24]. Moreover, considering normal parafns, the higher
the molecular weigh the higher the CN value [24]. CN decreases
with the decrease of the chain length [25,26] or the branches increase [25]. Also, the longer the chain of carbon the smaller the
knock [27]. Moreover, in structures with isomers, when the number of branches increases, knock tendency increases [27]. In regard
to density, it increases with the number of carbons [24], being
smaller for parafns, followed by cycloparafns and nally, aromatics [24].
Therefore, it may be inferred that the increase of the chain
length and the absence of branches in an alcohol show some
advantages like higher LHV, density and CN, lower ST, VLH and
knock tendency, although the percentage of oxygen decreases.

The use of higher-alcohols blended with diesel fuel may provide

additional advantages compared to short-chain alcohols (up to a
limit), i.e. longer molecular unbranched structure of alcohols that
means higher LHV and CN, lower ST and knock reduction, etc. However, very little work has been reported on higher-alcohols being
used as alternative fuel or fuel additives. To the best of our knowledge, references of the use of pentanol as fuel are almost inexistent. In fact, Gautam and Martin II [3] studied the effects of 10%
of different alcohols blended with petrol on spark ignition engines.
The maximum amount of pentanol used was less than 3%, while
power, torque and specic fuel consumption were not evaluated.
Moreover, the concept of a biorenery for higher-alcohol production is to integrate ethanol formation via fermentation with
conversion of this simple alcohol intermediate into higher alcohols
[28], i.e. pentanol. Bioreneries use renewable raw materials to
produce energy together with a wide range of commodities,
decreasing the dependency on fossil fuels reserves. Thus, pentanol
may be produced through this promising route for sustained
growth and preserving the environment.
The purpose of this study is to test and analyze the inuence of
1-pentanol/diesel fuel blends on diesel engine performance. This
target includes testing a diesel engine fueled with different 1-pentanol/diesel fuel blends and analyzing brake engine power, torque,
fuel consumption, brake-specic fuel consumption, brake thermal
efciency and to nd out the optimum alcohol/fuel blend to run
on direct-injection diesel engines.
2. Materials and methods
2.1. Fuel blends
1-Pentanol PRS was purchased from Panreac S.A.U. (Barcelona,
Spain). Some properties of diesel fuel, methanol, ethanol and pentanol are given in Table 1. The tested fuels were straight diesel fuel
(D100), 10% pentanol/90% diesel fuel blend (v/v) (P10), 15% pentanol/85% diesel fuel blend (v/v) (P15), 20% pentanol/80% diesel fuel
blend (v/v) (P20) and 25% pentanol/75% diesel fuel blend (v/v)
(P25). Some blends properties are shown in Table 2. Kinematic viscosity (m) was measured with a Cannon-Fenske viscometer, ash
point (FP) was measured with a closed cup PenskiMartens tester,
cold lter plugging point (CFPP) was measured with an ISL device,
density (q) was measured with a Proton hydrometer and higher
heating value (HHV) was evaluated with an IKA C-200 calorimeter.
2.2. Test equipment
The fuel tests were performed in a 2500-cm3 capacity, threecylinder, four-stroke, water-cooled, 18.5:1 compression ratio,
direct-injection diesel engine (Perkins model AD 3-152). The maximum torque was 162.8 Nm at 1300 rpm and the maximum engine
power was 34 kW at 2250 rpm (DIN 6270-A). The engine was not

Table 1
Fuel propertiesa of diesel fuel, methanol, ethanol and pentanol.

Properties

Diesel fuel

Methanol

Ethanol

Pentanol

Chemical formula
Molecular weight (g/mol)
Oxygen (wt%)
Density (kg/m3)
Boiling point (C)
ST (C)
LHV (MJ/kg)
VLH (kJ/kg)
CN

C14.342H24.75
197.21
0
837
210235
254
42.65
375
4550

CH3OH
32.04
49.93
791.3
65
385
20.08
1162.64
2

C2H5OH
46.07
34.73
789.4
79
363
26.83
918.42
11

C5H11OH
88.15
18.15
814.8
138
300
32.16
308.05
20

Data have been taken from Refs. [3,21,26,29,30].

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J. Campos-Fernandez et al. / Fuel 107 (2013) 866872

Table 2
Fuel properties of pentanol/diesel fuel blends.
Properties

Method

Diesel fuel EN 590 standard

D100

Pentanol

P10

P15

P20

P25

m (cSt)

EN ISO 3104
EN ISO 2719
EN 116

EN ISO 3675
ASTM D 240

24.5
>55
from 10 to 0

820-860

3.34
76.09
5
0
844
45.84
43.06

2.89
49.09
40
18.15
814
37.97
34.94

3.05
51.09
4
1.75
842
45.06
42.23

3.01
50.09
4
2.64
840
44.69
41.88

2.97
49.09
3
3.53
838
44.37
41.54

2.95
49.09
3
4.42
836
43.96
41.13

FP (C)
CFPP (C)
Oxygen (wt%)
q (kg/m3)
HHV (MJ/kg)
LHV (MJ/kg)

new but had been reconditioned to the original specications. The

injection type was a DPA-CAV distributor and the injection pressure was 18 atm.
The engine dynamometer was an electric testing device
(Froment, model XT200), with a maximum engine power of
136 kW and an accuracy of 1.44 kW at 100% of the engine speed
(reported by the National Institute of Agricultural Engineering, in
the United Kingdom), as described by Dorado et al [31].
The fuel was metered by a positive-displacement gear-type sensor, using an electronic fuel ow monitor (Froment, model FM502)
that had been tted in the fuel line between the tank and the engine fuel lter. The return fuel from the engine was recirculated
back into the engine supply line, as described by Dorado et al [31].
The engine speed was measured by the Froment testing device
and monitored electronically to the nearest 5 rpm. Data under several atmospheric conditions were collected to correct the power
and subsequent parameters, following SAE standard J1349 (revised
August 2004).
2.3. Engine tests
The performance curves were obtained at different loads and
speed settings, including the maximum values. A rst baseline test
was run with straight diesel fuel at the beginning, followed by the
pentanol/diesel fuel blends tests. A nal test was performed with
diesel fuel, to compare engine performance with the different fuels
and to determine whether the use of the blends had affected the
engine performance. Each test consisted on measuring the speed
n (rpm), torque M (Nm), hourly fuel consumption Cf (l/h), room
temperature Tr (C) and room pressure Pr (kPa). With these data,
brake power N (kW), brake-specic fuel consumption BSFC (g/
kW h) and brake thermal efciency BTE (%) were calculated. For
each load condition, the engine was run about 5 min before the test
started. Statistical analysis was applied to determine if any deterioration of engine performance occurred throughout the test
period.
3. Results and discussion
3.1. Tested fuels
According to Table 1, it may be seen that 1-pentanol, also
named pentanol along this study, has lower VLH value than diesel
fuel. As this is an important parameter on the combustion, no alcohols with higher number of carbons (the higher the number of carbons, the lower the VLH value) have been considered. Compared to
other alcohols, it can be seen that pentanol seems to be the most
attractive alternative because it provides properties values similar
to those of diesel fuel and, hence, a better performance is expected.
In fact, important properties on engine behavior, like CN and LHV,
exhibit more appropriate values considering pentanol instead of
methanol and ethanol, although pentanol properties are still far
away from those of diesel fuel, thus preventing the use of straight
pentanol to run diesel engines. For this reason, the tests were car-

ried out with different pentanol/diesel fuel blends. It was found

that pentanol has no solubility or stability problems in diesel fuel,
so no additive was added to the blends.
Table 2 depicts some pentanol/diesel fuel blends properties. For
every tested blend, it can be seen that q, m and CFPP are under EN
590 standard for diesel fuel. However, FP is slightly under the limits for every tested blend (as the lower pentanol density inuences
the nal value). This property indicates the lowest temperature at
which the fuel can vaporize and produce an ignitable mixture in
air. Flammable liquid means any liquid having a FP below
37.8 C, except any mixture having components with FP of
37.8 C or higher, the total of which make up 99% or more of the
total volume of the mixture [32]. Therefore, pentanol blends are
not considered ammable, thus handling and storage are expected
to occur under safe conditions. This is an advantage over similar
percentages of ethanol/diesel fuel blends [10]. Also, the higher
the pentanol percentage in the blend the higher the presence of
oxygen and the lower the heating and density values. The presence
of oxygen is positive as it may enhance combustion. Fuel viscosity
plays a signicant role in the lubrication of fuel injection systems
[17,20,30] and also affects the atomization and spray characteristics in the combustion chamber [25,30,33]. Blends depict slightly
lower viscosity than that of diesel fuel, thus no lubricity problems
were found.
Considering engine tests, the accuracy of the measurements and
uncertainties of the computed results of the parameters are given
in Table 3.
3.2. Engine brake power
Output indicates the amount of work the engine does per unit
time. Output curves at full throttle, considering diesel fuel and
pentanol/diesel fuel blends, are plotted in Fig. 1. The engine speed,
ranging from around 1200 to 2400 rpm is charted on the horizontal
axis. The numerical value of the engine power is charted on the
vertical axis.
As can be seen, all output curves and maximum power values of
the tested pentanol/diesel fuel blends are very similar to those of
neat diesel fuel. It must be noticed that the higher the percentage
of pentanol in the blend, the closer the output curve is to that of
diesel fuel. This trend persists for blends up to 20% pentanol/80%
diesel fuel. Table 4 illustrates the percentage change in maximum
output values of the blends compared to that of diesel fuel. As can
be seen, there is a slight maximum power loss, from 3% (P20 and
P25) to 1% (P10).
This slight output decrease is similar to the one found by Ajav
et al. using up to 20% ethanol blended with diesel fuel [18]. However, power loss is lower than results found by many researchers
using ethanol/diesel fuel blends up to 15% ethanol (from 7% to
20% power loss) [17,19]. Although pentanol has lower percentage
of oxygen by volume unit than ethanol, this drawback is offset
by its higher LHV, besides better CN (which reduces ignition delay),
lower ST (that enables autoignition to be more homogeneous) and
higher boiling point (which enables blends to penetrate more in

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J. Campos-Fernandez et al. / Fuel 107 (2013) 866872

This procedure helps to clarify the percentage difference between each test, compared to diesel fuel [31]. Results are shown
in Table 5, where Si is the power-speed area value for each test
and S0 corresponds to that of diesel fuel. As can be seen, there
are slight differences between blends tests and diesel fuel test,
where P15 exhibits the best behavior among the blends. Tests were
carried out with blends up to 25% pentanol/diesel fuel and found
that best performance was depicted by P15 (Tables 4 and 5). Therefore, no higher percentages of pentanol blended with diesel fuel
were tested.

Table 3
Accuracies of the measurements and uncertainties of the calculated results.
Measurements

Accuracy

Load
Speed
Fuel consumption
Density
Pressure
Temperature
Calorimeter

0.7%
1 rpm
1%
0.5 kg/m3
0.15 hPa (class A)
0.5 C
Reproducibility based on analysis of 1 g benzoic
acid NBS 39i 0.1% of relative standard deviation

Calculated results
Power
BSFC
BTE

Uncertainty (%)
1.4%
2.5%
2.5%

3.3. Engine brake torque

In the present study, torque curves are similar for all the tested
fuel blends compared to that of straight diesel fuel. No signicant
maximum torque loss is found, as shown in Table 4. The value of
torque loss is lower compared to the use of 15% ethanol/diesel fuel
blends (from 8% to 20% torque loss) [17,22]. It may be explained by
the same reasons exposed in the aforementioned section. The same
torque increase (about 1.5%) has also been reported in case 4% ethanol/diesel fuel blend was used [21].

the chamber) values, closer to those of diesel fuel than ethanol,

leading to better combustion and subsequently similar power. In
any case, the one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) test showed
that the differences in engine power between each test were not
signicant. In addition, statistical analysis showed that the experimental error was not relevant.
The Nn surface (S) at maximum load, when burning each fuel,
was integrated considering an engine speed of approximately
13002300 rpm (working conditions), using the expression:

3.4. Fuel consumption

Fuel consumption curves at full throat for all tested fuels are
shown in Fig. 2. As can be seen, fuel consumption curves are similar for all tested fuels, also showing similar maximum value.
Pentanol/diesel fuel blends exhibit a slight increase in fuel consumption in the range from 1100 rpm to 2200 rpm, compared to

nf 2312

Nndn

ni 1340

30

25

N (kW)

20

15

10

0
1000

1200

1400

1600

1800

2000

2200

2400

n (rpm)
D100

P10

P15

P20

P25

Fig. 1. Nn curves for neat diesel fuel and pentanol/diesel fuel blends at full throttle.

Table 4
Percentage change in maximum engine power (N), torque (M), fuel consumption (Cf) and minimum brake-specic fuel consumption (BSFC) values of pentanol/diesel fuel blends
compared to diesel fuel.
Fuel

Nmaxblend/Nmaxdieselfuel

Mmaxblend/Mmaxdieselfuel

Cfmaxblend/Cf

D100
P10
P15
P20
P25

1.00
0.99
0.99
0.97
0.97

1.00
0.99
1.01
1.01
1.01

1.00
0.99
0.99
0.98
1.00

maxdieselfuel

BSFCminblend/BSFCmindieselfuel
1.00
0.99
1.01
1.01
1.02

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J. Campos-Fernandez et al. / Fuel 107 (2013) 866872

Table 5
Percentage change in the engine power output surface (S), brake-specic fuel
consumption volume (V) and brake-thermal efciency surface (E) for pentanol/diesel
fuel blends compared to diesel fuel as reference value.
Fuel

Si/S0

Vi/V0

Ei/E0

D100
P10
P15
P20
P25

1.00
0.97
1.00
0.98
0.97

1.00
1.01
1.00
1.01
1.03

1.00
1.00
1.02
1.02
1.01

straight diesel fuel. Beyond 2200 rpm, blends power curves move
slightly to the left, hence there is a fall in the speed and, therefore,
a decrease in the consumption of fuel. Table 4 shows the maximum
fuel consumption of the blends, compared to that of diesel fuel. It
can be seen that blends show slightly lower maximum value of fuel
consumption (up to 2%) than that of diesel fuel.

3.5. Brake-specic fuel consumption

Fig. 3 illustrates the brake-specic fuel consumption at full
throat for all tested fuels. It can be seen that BSFC curves follow
similar trend for all tested fuels. Pentanol blends depict similar fuel
consumption values compared to diesel fuel at low and middle
pressure values (between 1 and 4 bar), although P20 and P25 present worse behavior at high pressure level (beyond 4 bar). Table 4
shows the minimum BSFC of the blends, compared to that of diesel
fuel.
The reported slight increase in BSFC (Table 4) agrees with results found by other researchers who added 20% ethanol to diesel
fuel [10,20], in some cases above 20% [18]. BSFC decrease (about
2.5%) has also been reported in case 4% ethanol was added to the
blend [21]. The presence of oxygen in the molecular structure of
pentanol, besides more appropriate CN, LHV, VLH and ST values
(close to those of diesel fuel) compared to ethanol, may explain
its better behavior. Further ANOVA testing showed that little specic fuel consumption variation between each test and diesel fuel
was not signicant. In addition, statistical analysis showed that the
experimental error was not relevant.

The brake-specic fuel consumption volume (V) was calculated

following Eq. (2), as in Dorado et al. [34]:

Nf 25

N0

nf 2300

BSFC jk dNj dnk

n0

where BSFCjk is related to each nk and Nj values, integrated considering only the usual working values for each parameter. The working values were chosen to simulate the usual requirements of this
engine. In this way, a volume value for each trio of working values
was obtained, making possible the brake-specic fuel consumption
comparison between different fuels, as shown in Table 5. As can be
drawn out from Table 5, there is a slight increase in BSFC volume
(up to 3%) when blends are used.
3.6. Brake thermal efciency
Relation between output and input of energy is an efcient
method to determine whether the use of pentanol had affected
the engine performance (Table 5). For this purpose, BTEn surface
(E) was integrated considering maximum load and engine speed
range of 13402312 rpm (working conditions), using the
expression:

nf 2312

BTEndn

ni 1340

Results are shown in Table 5, where Ei corresponds to the value

of BTE-n area for each test and E0 corresponds to that of diesel fuel.
Brake thermal efciency curves at full throat for all tested fuels are
shown in Fig. 4. As can be seen, BTE shows an increase with pentanol addition to the blends. Pentanol blends present a better BTE
than neat diesel fuel.
This behavior can be explained by the better combustion due to
the presence of oxygen that involves higher combustion efciency.
Furthermore, the increase in the ignition delay involves a rapid rate
of energy released which reduces the heat loss from the engine because there is not enough time for this heat lo leave the cylinder
through heat transfer to the coolant [35]. Besides, heat losses decreases due to the reduced boiling point of pentanol compared to

12

10

Cf (l/h)

0
1000

1200

1400

1600

1800

2000

2200

n (rpm)
D100

P10

P15

P20

P25

Fig. 2. Cfn curves for neat diesel fuel and pentanol/diesel fuel blends at full throat.

2400

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J. Campos-Fernandez et al. / Fuel 107 (2013) 866872

800
750
700

BSFC (g/kWh)

650
600
550
500
450
400
350
300
250
0

bmep (bar)
D100

P10

P15

P20

P25

Fig. 3. BSFCn curves for neat diesel fuel and pentanol/diesel fuel blends at full throat.

although results are encouraging, to accurately assess deposits and

wear, a long-term performance test should be carried out.
Although not the target of this work, preliminary exhaust emissions tests have shown smaller sulfur dioxide emissions compared
to the use of straight diesel fuel, due to lower diesel fuel presence.
Soot emissions tend to raise compared to the use of straight diesel
fuel, provided that the higher the density and viscosity the higher
the soot emissions [38]. In fact, high fuel viscosity makes atomization difcult and delays mixing, leading to higher soot formation
[39]. However, a reduction in nitrogen oxides compared to the
use of straight diesel fuel due to lower combustion temperature
derived from higher alcohols (LHV) properties is expected.

diesel value, in spite of the similar VLH. Also, other researches

using oxygenated fuels have found BTE increase [10,11,3537].
In sum, as shown in Table 5, a slight BTE increase was found
when the presence of pentanol in the blend increased. However,
no signicant differences were achieved comparing diesel fuel
and the blends, thus indicating energetic conversion efciency
was similar for all tested fuels. Analysis of variance (ANOVA)
showed that BTE differences between each test and diesel fuel were
not signicant. Moreover, little differences between fuels along
this study may be explained by the accuracy of the equipments.
A nal positive control test with diesel fuel was performed, showing the use of blends did not affect engine performance. However,

0.35

0.30

BTE (%)

0.25

0.20

0.15

0.10

0.05

0.00
1000

1200

1400

1600

1800

2000

2200

n (rpm)
D100

P10

P15

P20

P25

Fig. 4. BTEn curves for neat diesel fuel and pentanol/diesel fuel blends at full throat.

2400

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J. Campos-Fernandez et al. / Fuel 107 (2013) 866872

4. Conclusions
A direct-injection compression ignition Perkins diesel engine
was fueled with pentanol/diesel fuel blends (in a range between
10% and 25% of pentanol) and engine performance tests were compared with the use of neat diesel fuel. From this eld trial, the following conclusions can be drawn out:
The existence of oxygen in the molecular structure of 1-pentanol offsets its reduced LHV, showing better combustion and
BTE than diesel fuel (straight or blended with short-chain alcohols) but similar power, torque and BSFC.
In general terms, the engine performs better when pentanol/
diesel fuel blends are used. The pentanol LHV, ST, VLH, q and
CN values, closer to those of diesel fuel than ethanol and methanol, may explain it.
Diesel fuel blends with up to 25% pentanol can replace the use
of 100% diesel fuel on diesel engines (without any modication)
and without signicant loss of performance.
Based on this study, 25% pentanol/75% diesel fuel blend can be
recommended as a diesel fuel substitute if long-term diesel engine
tests provide satisfactory results.
Acknowledgements
Authors gratefully acknowledge support for this research to
IFAPA (Crdoba, Spain) for the laboratory facilities and to both
the Andalusian Economy, Innovation and Enterprise Council
(TEP-4994) and the Spanish Ministry of Education and Science
(ENE2010-15159), for funding this research.
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