An Experimental Investigation of Performance and Emission in Ethanol Fuelled Direct Injection Internal Combustion Engines with Zirconia Coating

This article presents the experimental investigation of use of neat ethanol (95% Ethanol +5% water) as a fuel in a four stroke single cylinder engine as regards to performance and emission characteristics. Two different ignition modes viz. (i) High Compression (16.5:1) Spark Ignition with high-pressure manifold injection of ethanol and (ii) Ultra High Compression (44.4:1) Compress Ignition with Direct Injection of ethanol have been experimentally analyzed with and without zirconia surface coating. As a benchmark, the results have been compared with data from the same engine run with diesel as fuel. In the first mode, the brake thermal efficiency with ethanol as fuel was found almost equal to that of diesel. However, the emissions were found to be significantly lower. In the second mode, the brake thermal efficiency was found to fall in between the diesel and ethanol manifold injection modes of operation. More significantly, the cost of running the engine was found to be lower than the operating cost incurred by using diesel. This assumes importance in the wake that ethanol can be obtained from non-fossil resources