Emission reduction potential of using gas-to-liquid and dimethyl ether fuels on a turbocharged diesel engine

A study of engine performance characteristics and both of regulated (CO, HC, NOx, and smoke) and unregulated (ultrafine particle number, mass concentrations and size distribution) emissions for a turbocharged diesel engine fueled with conventional diesel, gas-to-liquid (GTL) and dimethyl ether (DME) fuels respectively at different engine loads and speeds have been carried out. The results indicated that fuel components significantly affected the engine performance and regulated/unregulated emissions. GTL exhibited almost the same power and torque output as diesel, while improved fuel economy. GTL significantly reduced regulated emissions with average reductions of 21.2% in CO, 15.7% in HC, 15.6% in NOx and 22.1% in smoke in comparison to diesel, as well as average reductions in unregulated emissions of total ultrafine particle number (Ntot) and mass (Mtot) emissions by 85.3% and 43.9%. DME can significantly increase torque and power, compared with the original diesel engine, as well as significantly reduced regulated emissions of 40.1% in HC, 48.2% in NOx and smoke free throughout all the engine conditions. However, Ntot for DME is close to that for diesel. The reason is that the accumulation mode particle number emissions for DME are very low due to the characteristics of oxygen content and no C–C bond, which promotes the processes of nucleation and condensation of the semi-volatile compounds in the exhaust gas, as a result, a lot of nucleation mode particles produce.