IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/rensus/v52y2015icp477-493.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

An overview of methanol as an internal combustion engine fuel

Author

Listed:
  • Zhen, Xudong
  • Wang, Yang

Abstract

Methanol is an alternative, renewable, environmentally and economically attractive fuel; it is considered to be one of the most favorable fuels for conventional fossil-based fuels. Methanol has been recently used as an alternative to conventional fuels for internal combustion (IC) engines in order to satisfy some environmental and economical concerns. Because of a number of relatively large research projects that have been ongoing recently, much progress has been made that is worth reporting. This paper systematically describes the methanol productions, including the productions from coal, natural gas, coke-oven gas, hydrogen, biomass etc. It introduces the potentials of methanol as a renewable resource taking into account the world supply and demand, economic benefits and the effects on human health and the environment. Thirteen methods of application such as methanol/gasoline, methanol/diesel blends which can be used on the IC engines are summarized. Finally, this paper puts forward some new suggestions on the weakness in the researches of methanol engine.

Suggested Citation

  • Zhen, Xudong & Wang, Yang, 2015. "An overview of methanol as an internal combustion engine fuel," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 52(C), pages 477-493.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:rensus:v:52:y:2015:i:c:p:477-493
    DOI: 10.1016/j.rser.2015.07.083
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1364032115007303
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.rser.2015.07.083?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Lundgren, J. & Ekbom, T. & Hulteberg, C. & Larsson, M. & Grip, C.-E. & Nilsson, L. & Tunå, P., 2013. "Methanol production from steel-work off-gases and biomass based synthesis gas," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 112(C), pages 431-439.
    2. Yilmaz, Nadir & Sanchez, Tomas M., 2012. "Analysis of operating a diesel engine on biodiesel-ethanol and biodiesel-methanol blends," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 46(1), pages 126-129.
    3. Clausen, Lasse R. & Houbak, Niels & Elmegaard, Brian, 2010. "Technoeconomic analysis of a methanol plant based on gasification of biomass and electrolysis of water," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 35(5), pages 2338-2347.
    4. Sayin, Cenk & Ilhan, Murat & Canakci, Mustafa & Gumus, Metin, 2009. "Effect of injection timing on the exhaust emissions of a diesel engine using diesel–methanol blends," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 34(5), pages 1261-1269.
    5. Su, Li-Wang & Li, Xiang-Rong & Sun, Zuo-Yu, 2013. "Flow chart of methanol in China," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 28(C), pages 541-550.
    6. Gong, Changming & Huang, Kuo & Deng, Baoqing & Liu, Xunjun, 2011. "Catalyst light-off behavior of a spark-ignition LPG (liquefied petroleum gas) engine during cold start," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 36(1), pages 53-59.
    7. Liang, Chen & Ji, Changwei & Liu, Xiaolong, 2011. "Combustion and emissions performance of a DME-enriched spark-ignited methanol engine at idle condition," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 88(11), pages 3704-3711.
    8. Qi, D.H. & Chen, H. & Geng, L.M. & Bian, Y.ZH. & Ren, X.CH., 2010. "Performance and combustion characteristics of biodiesel-diesel-methanol blend fuelled engine," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 87(5), pages 1679-1686, May.
    9. Li, Hongqiang & Hong, Hui & Jin, Hongguang & Cai, Ruixian, 2010. "Analysis of a feasible polygeneration system for power and methanol production taking natural gas and biomass as materials," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 87(9), pages 2846-2853, September.
    10. Yilmaz, Nadir, 2012. "Comparative analysis of biodiesel–ethanol–diesel and biodiesel–methanol–diesel blends in a diesel engine," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 40(1), pages 210-213.
    11. Hall, Jane V., 1985. "Potential air quality benefits of methanol as a vehicle fuel," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 10(6), pages 733-736.
    12. Zhen, Xudong & Wang, Yang & Xu, Shuaiqing & Zhu, Yongsheng, 2013. "Study of knock in a high compression ratio spark-ignition methanol engine by multi-dimensional simulation," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 150-159.
    13. Holmgren, Kristina M. & Berntsson, Thore & Andersson, Eva & Rydberg, Tomas, 2012. "System aspects of biomass gasification with methanol synthesis – Process concepts and energy analysis," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 45(1), pages 817-828.
    14. Pellegrini, Laura A. & Soave, Giorgio & Gamba, Simone & Langè, Stefano, 2011. "Economic analysis of a combined energy–methanol production plant," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 88(12), pages 4891-4897.
    15. Gong, Chang-Ming & Huang, Kuo & Jia, Jing-Long & Su, Yan & Gao, Qing & Liu, Xun-Jun, 2011. "Regulated emissions from a direct-injection spark-ignition methanol engine," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 36(5), pages 3379-3387.
    16. Renó, Maria Luiza Grillo & Lora, Electo Eduardo Silva & Palacio, José Carlos Escobar & Venturini, Osvaldo José & Buchgeister, Jens & Almazan, Oscar, 2011. "A LCA (life cycle assessment) of the methanol production from sugarcane bagasse," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 36(6), pages 3716-3726.
    17. Su, Li-Wang & Li, Xiang-Rong & Sun, Zuo-Yu, 2013. "The consumption, production and transportation of methanol in China: A review," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 63(C), pages 130-138.
    18. Leduc, S. & Lundgren, J. & Franklin, O. & Dotzauer, E., 2010. "Location of a biomass based methanol production plant: A dynamic problem in northern Sweden," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 87(1), pages 68-75, January.
    19. Gravalos, I. & Moshou, D. & Gialamas, Th. & Xyradakis, P. & Kateris, D. & Tsiropoulos, Z., 2013. "Emissions characteristics of spark ignition engine operating on lower–higher molecular mass alcohol blended gasoline fuels," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 27-32.
    20. Ganesh, Ibram, 2014. "Conversion of carbon dioxide into methanol – a potential liquid fuel: Fundamental challenges and opportunities (a review)," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 31(C), pages 221-257.
    21. Mat Yasin, M.H. & Yusaf, Talal & Mamat, R. & Fitri Yusop, A., 2014. "Characterization of a diesel engine operating with a small proportion of methanol as a fuel additive in biodiesel blend," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 114(C), pages 865-873.
    22. Çay, Yusuf & Korkmaz, Ibrahim & Çiçek, Adem & Kara, Fuat, 2013. "Prediction of engine performance and exhaust emissions for gasoline and methanol using artificial neural network," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 177-186.
    23. Masih, A. Mansur M. & Albinali, Khaled & DeMello, Lurion, 2010. "Price dynamics of natural gas and the regional methanol markets," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 38(3), pages 1372-1378, March.
    24. Li, Yaopeng & Jia, Ming & Liu, Yaodong & Xie, Maozhao, 2013. "Numerical study on the combustion and emission characteristics of a methanol/diesel reactivity controlled compression ignition (RCCI) engine," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 106(C), pages 184-197.
    25. Canakci, Mustafa & Ozsezen, Ahmet Necati & Alptekin, Ertan & Eyidogan, Muharrem, 2013. "Impact of alcohol–gasoline fuel blends on the exhaust emission of an SI engine," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 52(C), pages 111-117.
    26. Zhen, Xudong & Wang, Yang, 2013. "Study of ignition in a high compression ratio SI (spark ignition) methanol engine using LES (large eddy simulation) with detailed chemical kinetics," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 549-558.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Manju Dhakad Tanwar & Felipe Andrade Torres & Ali Mubarak Alqahtani & Pankaj Kumar Tanwar & Yashas Bhand & Omid Doustdar, 2023. "Promising Bioalcohols for Low-Emission Vehicles," Energies, MDPI, vol. 16(2), pages 1-22, January.
    2. Zhen, Xudong & Wang, Yang, 2015. "Numerical analysis on original emissions for a spark ignition methanol engine based on detailed chemical kinetics," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 81(C), pages 43-51.
    3. Zhen, Xudong & Wang, Yang, 2013. "Study of ignition in a high compression ratio SI (spark ignition) methanol engine using LES (large eddy simulation) with detailed chemical kinetics," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 549-558.
    4. Wang, Xin & Ge, Yunshan & Liu, Linlin & Peng, Zihang & Hao, Lijun & Yin, Hang & Ding, Yan & Wang, Junfang, 2015. "Evaluation on toxic reduction and fuel economy of a gasoline direct injection- (GDI-) powered passenger car fueled with methanol–gasoline blends with various substitution ratios," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 157(C), pages 134-143.
    5. Gong, Changming & Liu, Jiajun & Peng, Legao & Liu, Fenghua, 2017. "Numerical study of effect of injection and ignition timings on combustion and unregulated emissions of DISI methanol engine during cold start," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 112(C), pages 457-465.
    6. Wang, Xin & Ge, Yunshan & Zhang, Chuanzhen & Tan, Jianwei & Hao, Lijun & Liu, Jia & Gong, Huiming, 2016. "Effects of engine misfire on regulated, unregulated emissions from a methanol-fueled vehicle and its ozone forming potential," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 177(C), pages 187-195.
    7. Nuthan Prasad, B.S. & Pandey, Jayashish Kumar & Kumar, G.N., 2020. "Impact of changing compression ratio on engine characteristics of an SI engine fueled with equi-volume blend of methanol and gasoline," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 191(C).
    8. Yusri, I.M. & Mamat, R. & Najafi, G. & Razman, A. & Awad, Omar I. & Azmi, W.H. & Ishak, W.F.W. & Shaiful, A.I.M., 2017. "Alcohol based automotive fuels from first four alcohol family in compression and spark ignition engine: A review on engine performance and exhaust emissions," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 77(C), pages 169-181.
    9. Svanberg, Martin & Ellis, Joanne & Lundgren, Joakim & Landälv, Ingvar, 2018. "Renewable methanol as a fuel for the shipping industry," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 94(C), pages 1217-1228.
    10. Gong, Changming & Liu, Fenghua & Sun, Jingzhen & Wang, Kang, 2016. "Effect of compression ratio on performance and emissions of a stratified-charge DISI (direct injection spark ignition) methanol engine," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 96(C), pages 166-175.
    11. Soni, Dinesh Kumar & Gupta, Rajesh, 2017. "Application of nano emulsion method in a methanol powered diesel engine," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 126(C), pages 638-648.
    12. Yesilyurt, Murat Kadir & Eryilmaz, Tanzer & Arslan, Mevlüt, 2018. "A comparative analysis of the engine performance, exhaust emissions and combustion behaviors of a compression ignition engine fuelled with biodiesel/diesel/1-butanol (C4 alcohol) and biodiesel/diesel/," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 165(PB), pages 1332-1351.
    13. Vallinayagam, R. & Vedharaj, S. & Yang, W.M. & Roberts, W.L. & Dibble, R.W., 2015. "Feasibility of using less viscous and lower cetane (LVLC) fuels in a diesel engine: A review," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 1166-1190.
    14. Feng, Hongqing & Chen, Xiaofan & Sun, Liangliang & Ma, Ruixiu & Zhang, Xiuxia & Zhu, Lijun & Yang, Chaohe, 2023. "The effect of methanol/diesel fuel blends with co-solvent on diesel engine combustion based on experiment and exergy analysis," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 282(C).
    15. Çay, Yusuf & Korkmaz, Ibrahim & Çiçek, Adem & Kara, Fuat, 2013. "Prediction of engine performance and exhaust emissions for gasoline and methanol using artificial neural network," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 177-186.
    16. Gong, Changming & Yu, Jiawei & Wang, Kang & Liu, Jiajun & Huang, Wei & Si, Xiankai & Wei, Fuxing & Liu, Fenghua & Han, Yongqiang, 2018. "Numerical study of plasma produced ozone assisted combustion in a direct injection spark ignition methanol engine," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 153(C), pages 1028-1037.
    17. Holmgren, Kristina M. & Berntsson, Thore S. & Andersson, Eva & Rydberg, Tomas, 2016. "Comparison of integration options for gasification-based biofuel production systems – Economic and greenhouse gas emission implications," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 111(C), pages 272-294.
    18. Awad, Omar I. & Mamat, R. & Ali, Obed M. & Sidik, N.A.C. & Yusaf, T. & Kadirgama, K. & Kettner, Maurice, 2018. "Alcohol and ether as alternative fuels in spark ignition engine: A review," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 82(P3), pages 2586-2605.
    19. Zhang, Hanfei & Wang, Ligang & Pérez-Fortes, Mar & Van herle, Jan & Maréchal, François & Desideri, Umberto, 2020. "Techno-economic optimization of biomass-to-methanol with solid-oxide electrolyzer," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 258(C).
    20. Zhang, Bo & Ji, Changwei & Wang, Shuofeng & Liu, Xiaolong, 2014. "Combustion and emissions characteristics of a spark-ignition engine fueled with hydrogen–methanol blends under lean and various loads conditions," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 74(C), pages 829-835.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:rensus:v:52:y:2015:i:c:p:477-493. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/600126/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.