Improving the performance and emission parameters of a single cylinder spark ignition engine with Ethanol-Gasoline blends

Environmental pollution through emissions from inte rnal combustion engine leads to greater global impa ct. Usage of alcohols and its blends with gasoline in spark iengine has contributed to a large extent in improving the engine’s exhaust emission. This article deals with the experimental investigation of using gasoline-et hanol blends in a four stroke single cylinder overhead cam spark ig nition engine for performance and emission characte ristics. The performance parameters like brake specific energy cbrake thermal efficiency, mechanical ef ficiency and emission parameters like unburned hydrocarbons, carbon-monoxide and oxides of nitrogen were analyz ed in detail. The BSEC was found to decrease with increas e in ethanol blends at all loads where as BTE and m echanical efficiency showed a significant increase with addit ion of ethanol blends. The UBHC and CO emission was noticed to be higher initially during starting and found to de crease with addition of ethanol. NO x emission showed an increasing trend for the entire load condition with increase in ethanol blends.