Diesel engines are widely used in heavy-duty road vehicles, marine vessels and power generation, while burners are used in various factories as a heat source. Emulsion fuel is one of promising alternative fuel for Diesel engines that can reduce fuel consumption and emissions. However, in order to stabilise the fuel, it require additive known as surfactant. The surfactant is generally expensive and not cost effective.

A device named as “Real-Time Non-Surfactant Emulsion Fuel Supply System” (RTES) can produce emulsion fuel without using any type of additive. RTES combines several noble agitation methods to ensure rapid mixing without addition of any chemical additive into the fuel. The RTES need to be installed near to the fuel injector so that the emulsion fuel can be introduced into the combustion chamber before the fuel start to separate into diesel fuel and water. Intelligent control strategy was employed to ensure the water percentage introduced into the emulsion fuel kept constant at any engine load.

Theoretically, when some emulsion fuel injected into the combustion chamber, the water is turned to super-heated steam and in the process literally blows apart the oil particle, reducing particle size and increasing surface area. This process is known as micro-explosion. This brings about violent agitation within the combustion process itself and ensures an adequate number of collisions between the hydrogen, carbon and oxygen atoms which leads toward complete combustion and fuel saving. Complete combustion reduces soot and since the process is cooled by the minute particles of water at the point of maximum temperature, the formation of NOx is significantly reduced.

A dynamometer test of 1-ton lorry equipped with RTES has been conducted and the result shows a reduction of NOx and soot emissions about 50% and fuel saving about 10%.

Furthermore, a 200 hours’ durability test on 5kW diesel generators fuelled with the emulsion shows a lower carbon deposit on the engine combustion chamber and reduce wear on combustion cylinder. In addition, emulsion fuel reduces deterioration of lubrication oil of diesel engine. This will finally lead to a reduction of engine maintenance cost and increase engine lifespan.

RTES can be installed into a diesel engine requiring no modification with plug and play type installation and minimum running down-time. No special training required to operate RTES.

RTES is the first of its kind in the world installed in the road transport. It was possible because RTES has a compact design that could easily fitted into a vehicle engine compartment.

Apart from fuel saving, a transportation Industry in certain countries can save more money by fulfilling emission regulation requirement. They don’t have to fork out money for exhaust emission after treatment equipment.