Effect of injection timing on a DI diesel engine fuelled with a synthetic fuel blend

•Possible solution to produce a liquid alternative fuel from carbon black obtained from pyrolysis of waste tyres.•Solution to reduce environmental problem.•Diesel doped with carbon black fuel used in a compression ignition engine at different injection timing.

Carbon black (CB) is one of the products obtained from the pyrolysis of waste automobile tyres. It possesses a considerable amount of heat energy in it. In this research work, the effect of varying injection timing on the combustion, performance and emissions of a single cylinder, air cooled, four-stroke, direct injection (DI) diesel engine was experimentally investigated, by using a synthetic fuel blend. The synthetic fuel blend was composed of 10% CB and 90% diesel on a volume basis and was denoted as Carbodiesel10. Investigations were carried out with Carbodiesel10 at different injection timings, viz; original (23°CA bTDC), two advanced (26°CA bTDC and 24.5°CA bTDC) and retarded (21.5°CA bTDC and 20°CA bTDC) injection timings. With the advanced injection timing of 26°CA bTDC, the brake thermal efficiency was found to be higher by about 6.4% while the fuel consumption was found to be lower by about 11.9% than those of the original injection timing. The NO emission was noticed to be higher by about 23% and the smoke was lower by about 13.5% at 26°CA bTDC than that of the original injection timing.