Bitumen/Water Emulsions as Fuels for High-Speed Ci Engines Preliminary Investigations

Mixtures of bitumen and water, are cheap fuel alternatives for combustion engines. There are, however, several problems that have to be solved before these fuels can be applied in high-speed diesel engines. These are: - emulsion break up due to high temperature or high shear stress in the injection system - high content of heavy metals - high emissions of particulate matter and PAH This investigation deals with the problem of separation due to high shear stress in the injection system. It is shown that the viscosity of the injected fuel can be used to estimate whether the emulsion has separated or not. The method is applied to evaluate the results of injection experiments where the limits of the temperature and injection pressure/shear stress of a bitumen/water emulsion in an injection system are investigated.