The potential of methanol as a fuel for flex-fuel and dedicated spark-ignition engines

► Methanol and gasoline operation are compared on two atmospheric flex-fuel engines. ► Methanol enables a relative efficiency increase of 10% while reducing NOx and CO2. ► Throttleless load control strategies using lean-burn and EGR are evaluated for methanol. ► EGR strategy allows to increase part load efficiency while maintaining low emissions. ► A high CR, turbo engine with this strategy reaches diesel-like efficiencies on methanol.