Experimental investigation of spray characteristics of ethyl esters in a constant volume chamber

Biodiesels are mainly produced via the utilization of methanol in transesterification, which is the widespread biodiesel production process. The majority of this methanol is currently obtained from fossil resources, i.e. coal and natural gas. However, in contrast with methanol, biomass-based ethanol can also be used to produce biodiesels; this could allow the production line to become fully renewable. This study aimed to investigate the spray characteristics of various ethyl ester type biodiesels derived from sunflower and corn oils in comparison to methyl esters based on the same feedstocks and reference petroleum-based diesel. Spray penetration length (SPL) and spray cone angle (SCA) were experimentally evaluated in a constant volume chamber allowing optical access, under chamber pressures of 0, 5, 10 and 15 bar and injection pressures of 600 and 800 bar. Sauter mean diameter (SMD) values were estimated by using an analytical correlation. Consequently, ethyl esters performed longer SPL (2.8-20%) and narrower SCA (5.1-19%) than diesel under ambient pressures of 5 and 10 bar. Although the SMD values of ethyl esters were 48% higher than diesel on average, their macroscopic spray characteristics were very similar to those of diesel under 15 bar chamber pressure. Moreover, ethyl esters were found to be very similar to methyl esters in terms of spray characteristics. The differences in SPL, SCA and SMD values for both types of biodiesels were lower than 4%. When considering the uncertainty (± 0.84%) and repeatability (±5%) ratios, the difference between the spray characteristics of methyl and ethyl esters was not major.