Experimental Investigation of the Effects of Hydrous Methanol (5% Water) on the Performance and Emissions of a Spark-Ignition Engine

Distillation is an inevitable step in the production of pure methanol to remove water and residual gases from its crude state. However, it increases the overall cost of production of concentrated methanol. The current study is targeted towards usage of hydrous methanol in an automotive spark ignition engine. Engine was run at stoichiometric equivalence ratio with a constant speed of 4000 rpm and variable torque (3-9 Nm). Water was blended in methanol by 5% v/v. The volumetric efficiency increased drastically with hydrous methanol by 22.5% and 14.7% at lower and higher torque respectively as compared to base methanol (100%). Brake thermal efficiency increased by 18% at lower torque and decreased by 21.6% at high torque with hydrous methanol. In addition to this, NOx emission decreased by 83.7% and 19.7% at lower and higher torque respectively with hydrous methanol. CO emission also decreased due to increase in air to fuel ratio with hydrous methanol.