Advanced biofuel with butyl levulinate and its utilisation in ci internal combustion engine

In the recent years the growing attention to environmental impact attracted increasing interest towards the use of biomass as renewable carbon source for the production of chemicals and transportation fuels. In particular, lignocellulosic biomass represents an abundant and cost-effective resource with high carbon sequestration ability. In this paper the valorization of mixtures made of n-butanol (n-BuOH), butyl levulinate (BL) and dibutyl ether (DBE), in different percentages, as additive fuel for compression ignition (CI) internal combustion engine (ICE) was studied. These mixtures can be directly obtained from the catalytic alcoholysis reaction of the cellulosic fraction of raw and pretreated lignocellulosic biomasses. Moreover, the possibility to recycle and reutilize the excess alcohol (n-Butanol), during the reaction, has been considered since it represents an opportunity to reduce the overall costs of the process. Therefore, a blend constituted only by BL and DBE has been also tested. The model mixtures were prepared by using commercial reactants, and were tested as blend with Diesel fuel in a CI-ICE with the measurement of pollutant emission and performance. Results have been compared with those obtained with a commercial Diesel fuel. As a whole, results evidenced the potentiality of these novel blending mixtures to reduce the emissions of particulate without any significant increase in the other pollutants and negligible changes in engine power and efficiency.