Properties, performance, and applications of biofuel blends: a review

Abstract

Biofuels such as ethanol and biodiesel derived from living plants or animal matter can be used directly in their neat forms or as blends with their fossil counterparts in internal combustion engines. Although the properties and performance of neat biofuels have been extensively reported, this is not the case for many blends. The purpose of this review is to analyze different forms of biofuel blends that are under research and development comparing their utility and performance in the two primary classes of engines, i.e., spark ignition and compression ignition engines. The fuel properties, performance and emission characteristics, advantages and disadvantages of various fuel blends are compared and discussed. The analysis reveals certain blends possess better overall fuel properties and yield better overall performance than the neat or fossil forms.

Keywords

• biodiesel blends
• ethanol blends
• gasohol
• E-diesel
• EB-diesel
• gasoline-ethanol-methanol
• bio-oil/biodiesel