Use of Methanol-Gasoline Blend: a Comparison of SI Engine Characteristics and Lubricant Oil Condition

The quest for alternatives to gasoline becomes more urgent day by day because of environmental concerns and exhaustion of fossil fuel reserves. Methanol has proved to be an attractive renewable, alternative fuel due to improvement in engine performance. This research not only addresses performance and emissions from engine but also examines the importance of lubricant oil in engine by monitoring variation in physicochemical properties after 100 hours of operations on gasoline with octane rating 92 (G-92) and also 6% methanol by volume blended with 94% gasoline by volume (M-6). The performance and emission parameters were evaluated for nine different speeds. The accuracy of emission data was then calculated using Weibull distribution within 75% and 95% confidence intervals. On average, M-6 produced 3.72% more brake power than G-92. But M-6 produced 3.40% lower HC emission, and 5.54% lower CO emission in comparison with G-92. The lubricant oil exhibited 4.76%, 1.28%, 6.03%, 0.48%, 0.045%, and 3.49% rise in (KV)(40 degrees C), (KV)(100 degrees C,) TAN, ash content, specific gravity, and flashpoint for M-6, respectively. Although M-6 improves engine performance and reduces carbon emissions, it is also responsible for early degradation of lubricant oil. Therefore, efforts for reducing the degradation rate of lubricant oil will open new avenues for future research.