Influences of methanol and ethanol blends on spray characteristics and flame propagation

New approaches to reduce the greenhouse effect are continuously being the main concern of environmental issues related to the usage of fossil fuel. Today biomass is seen as the most promising energy source to lessen greenhouse gas emissions. These characteristics of biofuel were being studied because of the difference of fuel properties than conventional used fossil fuel. There are many methods which can be used to analyze mixture formation and flame propagation of biofuel. This study using common method which known as Z-type Schlieren method to investigate the optical visualization systems and analyze both mixture formation and flame propagation of biofuel and to prove that they are suitable to be used to determine the biofuel combustion characteristics. The biofuel used in this study are premix of ethanol-gasoline and methanol-gasoline where each premix consists of 5%, 10% and 15% vol. blend ratio of alcohol in gasoline. These biofuels then were tested in three different ambient pressure inside the combustion chamber which are 0.4MPa, 0.5MPa and 0.6MPa. The higher the ambient pressure results to fastest flame propagation. Besides that, at higher ambient pressures, the use of ethanol-gasoline as an alternate fuel can lower the exhaust emissions produced by spark ignition engines compared to methanol-gasoline. By using an alternative fuel as a replacement of neat gasoline in an SI system leads to better combustion process due to presence of oxygen content in an alcohol also lessen the greenhouse gas effect which better for human being on this earth.