Effect of Fuel Ethanol Content on Exhaust Emissions of a Flexible Fuel Vehicle

The European Union is aiming at increasing the market share of biofuels in order to improve the security of supply of transport fuel and to reduce CO2 emissions. The target is to reach a 10% of biofuels on energy basis in the transport sector by 2020. Bioethanol and biodiesel represent the only biofuels currently available on the market in big quantities and technologically mature and bioethanol is probably the most widely use alternative fuel in the world (mainly in Brazil and in the USA). According to the literature, the success of bioethanol as alternative fuel is linked to some clear advantages but there are also disadvantages: Advantages: - Very high octane number - As a renewable fuel produces lower CO2 emissions compare to conventional fuels - It reduces some pollutant emissions - Its ozone forming potential is lower than that of gasoline and diesel - It contains no sulphur and is biodegradable Disadvantages: - It increases evaporative emissions (when blended with gasoline at low percentages) - Because of the lower vapour pressure and high latent heat of vaporization of neat ethanol, it makes cold start in cooler climates more difficult. - It increase acetaldehyde emissions but reduces those of formaldehyde. - E85 vehicles give higher unregulated emissions (ethane and acetaldehyde) than gasoline fuelled vehicles. Due to its characteristics neat ethanol cannot be used as transport fuel mainly because its high heat of vaporization and low volatility make cold start very difficult especially in cold climates. The most common way to overcome this problem is to blend ethanol with a small fraction of a much more volatile fuel such as gasoline; the most popular blend is E85 which consists of 85% ethanol and 15% gasoline by volume. Although E85 has been extensively used worldwide, engine manufacturers guarantee problem-free operation without any modification only to catalyst equipped cars fuelled with gasoline containing no more than 5% ethanol. However modern catalyst-equipped cars are probably able to run without any material problem with up to 20% ethanol which seems to be the upper limit for cold climates. An experimental activity has been planned and carried out at the JRC to investigate the emissions of a flexible fuel vehicle using different ethanol/gasoline blends. The results of this experimental programme are briefly summarized here below. The details of the work and the complete results are described in the first part of this document ( In particular, three different fuels have been tested: a standard commercial summer gasoline marketed in Italy used as base fuel and two gasoline/ethanol blends, which have been obtained by splash blending ethanol in the standard gasoline. The two gasoline/ethanol blends contained respectively 10% ethanol (E10) and 85% ethanol (E85). The test vehicle was a passenger car currently marketed in Europe and one of the most popular models belonging to the flexible fuel vehicle category. Emission tests were carried out both following the European certification procedure (NEDC cycle) and using a US driving cycle (US 06). Regulated and unregulated emissions were measured.JRC.H.4-Transport and air qualit

Effect of Biodiesel Fuels on Pollutant Emissions from EURO 3 LD Diesel Vehicles (1)

Transport is a key factor in modern economies. However, the EU transport system is currently not sustainable, and in many respects moving away from sustainability rather than towards it. The European Environment Agency highlights in particular the sector's growing CO2 emissions that threaten the EU meeting its target under the Kyoto protocol. Transport also represents a key challenge to sustainability in terms of depletion of resources and European competitiveness, safety and security concerns, especially due to the monolithic reliance on a single energy source. As stated in the Commission’s November 2000 Green Paper on security of supply, in 1998 energy consumption in the transport sector was to blame for 28 % of emissions of CO2, the leading greenhouse gas. In particular, road transport alone accounts for 84 % of the CO2 emissions attributable to transport. Furthermore, in terms of security of energy supply, there is growing concern for the current situation of transport sector that depends on crude oil for more than 99%. In the above mentioned Green Paper the European Commission has also identified the measures to tackle these problems and, among them, one the most important is the promotion of alternative fuels; the ambitious target that has been proposed by the Commission is to replace 20% of conventional fuels with substitute fuels by 2020. According to the Commission White Paper “European transport policy for 2010: time to decide” the most promising forms are biofuels in the short and medium term, natural gas in the medium and long term and hydrogen in the very long term. On the basis of the above mentioned Papers, in 2003 the European Union has adopted two Directives, the EC/2003/30 and the EC/2003/96, with the overall objective of promoting the use of biofuels. The first Directive set the targets for market share of biofuels for 2005 (2% in terms of energy content) and 2010 (5.75%); the second Directive set the framework for tax incentives for the promotion of biofuels. Biodiesel is currently the most produced biofuel in Europe: the production in 2003 was about of 1500000 (EU25) tons with an increase of more than 32% compared to the 2002 figure. Within this policy framework, the Joint Research Centre and the European Biodiesel Board have decided to cooperate to investigate the effect of biodiesel on pollutant emissions from diesel engines. In particular, in this report the effect of biodiesel fuels produced from different raw materials on the regulated emissions from light duty diesel vehicles are compared to the effect on other regulated and unregulated pollutants.JRC.H.4-Transport and air qualit

Joint EUCAR/JRC/CONCAWE Study on: Effects of Gasoline Vapour Pressure and Ethanol Content on Evaporative Emissions from Modern Cars

A test programme designed to investigate the influence of gasoline vapour pressure and ethanol content on evaporative emissions from modern passenger cars has been carried out by the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission jointly with CONCAWE and EUCAR. Seven gasoline passenger cars representative of current EURO 3/4 emissions technology were tested for evaporative emissions with ten different test fuels. The test fuel matrix comprised 60 and 70 kPa hydrocarbon base fuels with 5 and 10% ethanol splash blends and 5 and 10% ethanol matched volatility blends. The evaporative emission tests were carried out according to a test protocol based on the European homologation test procedure, with no additional vehicle conditioning. Although this test protocol turned out to have a considerable influence on the results, the programme has provided valuable information and several clear conclusions can be drawn. The programme confirmed that vapour pressure (DVPE) is a key fuel variable for evaporative emissions. However the effect of vapour pressure is strongly non-linear; the ethanol blends with final DVPE around 75 kPa gave considerably higher evaporative emissions than the lower volatility fuels in most of the vehicles. Differences between fuels with DVPE in the range 60-70 kPa were small. Additional tests on two vehicles performed after the main programme have raised some questions about possible effects of ethanol on carbon canister working capacity and on the role of permeation in determining evaporative emissions.JRC.H.4-Transport and air qualit

Simulation of the removal of net internal components with dynamic modeling software

The replacement of the internal plasma-facing components (first-wall and blanket segments) for maintenance or at the end of their lifetime is an important aspect of the design of the Next European Torus (NET) and of the remote handling procedures. The first phase of development of the design software tool INVDYN (inverse dynamics) is presented, which will allow optimization of the movements of the internal segments during replacement, taking into account inertial effects and structural deformations. A first analysis of the removal of one NET internal segment provides, for a defined trajectory, the required generalized forces that must be applied on the crane system.SCOPUS: ar.jinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishe