Journal of Basic and Applied Research International

The synthesis, characterization and the performance evaluation of a gasoline ethanol diethyl ether blend on spark ignition engine is presented. The experimental set up is consisting of  a Kane May Quintox KM9106 gas analyzer equipped with an oxygen sensor (range 0–25%, accuracy −0.1% to +0.2%), a hydrogen compensated carbon monoxide sensor (range 0–10,000 ppm, accuracy ±20 ppm < 400 ppm), an SO2 sensor (range 0–5,000 ppm, accuracy ±5 ppm < 100 ppm), an NO sensor (range 0–5,000 ppm, accuracy ±5 ppm < 100 ppm), as well as a temperature sensor for measuring flue and ambient temperatures (±1°C) is used with the following equipment: test engine, A C voltage source, stop watch, 500cc measuring cylinder and infrared tachometer. The experimental tests were performed using four different fuel blends which include (85% gasoline, 10% ethanol, and %5 diethyl ether), (80% gasoline, 15% ethanol and %5diethyl ether), (75% gasoline, %15 ethanol and %10 diethyl ether) and (60% gasoline, 25% ethanol and 15% diethyl ether) by volume. The gasoline fuel was use as a baseline for comparison. The engine performance tests carried out were conducted for fuel consumption, engine speed, brake power thermal efficiency, and brake specific fuel consumption. The results obtained show that there was no reduction in brake power when the blend  80:15:5 was used .in fact it was observed that there was a remarkable  increase in  power output by 5.3% at low engine speeds, thus  reducing the brake specific fuel consumption by 22.4% on the average. This brings about also a complete combustion. The exhaust analysis carried out reveals that there was a reasonable reduction of CO by 5.8%. This clearly indicates that this blend is adequately suited as an alternative fuel.