An investigation of the catalytic abatement of emissions from the combustion of diesel/bioethanol blends Grisel Corro * , Edgar Ayala, Nallely Tellez, Mario M. Bustillo Diaz Laboratorio de Catalisis y Energia, Instituto de Ciencias, Benemerita Universidad Autonoma de Puebla, 4 Sur 104, Puebla, Puebla 72000, Mexico article info Article history: Received 31 July 2009 Received in revised form 18 June 2010 Accepted 15 July 2010 Available online 29 July 2010 Keywords: Bioethanol Diesel/bioethanol Emissions abatement abstract In this study, we investigated the activity of pre-sulfated 1%Pt–2%Sn/c–Al 2 O 3 on the catalytic abatement of the combustion emissions of three fuels: pure diesel E(0), pure bioethanol E(100) and bioethanol blended diesel containing 10% bioethanol E(10). The emissions generated, by each blend combustion, were conducted continuously to the catalyst sample. The catalytic activity was determined by following the evolution of the outflow emissions concentrations by FTIR gas spectroscopy as a function of the cat- alyst temperature. Results showed that the addition of bioethanol to diesel may be necessary to enhance the catalytic oxidation of diesel unburned hydrocarbons and particulate matter on pre-sulfated 1%Pt– 2%Sn/c–Al 2 O 3 . Ó 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction The growing vehicle fleet around the world has intensified the search of alternative renewable fuels, which has become an impor- tant area of research, because it concerns about the potential global warming effects of major greenhouse gases from current fossil fuels. Oxygenated fuels are known to reduce PM emissions for motor vehicles and have been evaluated as potential sources of renewable fuels. Among the alternative fuels, biodiesel and bioethanol are the most widely studied biofuels for diesel engines and have been widely studied in recent years. [1–8]. Bioethanol can contribute to the gradual substitution of fossil fuels not only in the gasoline sector but even in the diesel one by direct blending and ethanoly- sis. Direct blending of bioethanol provides higher oxygen concen- tration than biodiesel blends, and thus higher potential for particulate emissions reduction with the same volume fraction of renewable fuel blended. Bioethanol is considered by many as one of the most important alternatives to gasoline and diesel, because it can offer substantial reductions in the consumption of fossil fuels and compensation of the emission of greenhouse gases. Bioethanol is produced from renewable raw materials, i.e., a surplus of biomass or from crops [9]. The use of bioethanol in diesel fuel can yield significant reduction of particulate matter (PM) emissions for motor vehicles [3–5,10–14]. However, there are many technical barriers to the direct use of ethanol in diesel fuel due to its properties, including low cetane number of ethanol and low solubility of ethanol in die- sel fuel in cold weather [15–16]. In regard of an alternative fuel, we must consider not only the technical practicability, but also its ex- haust gas emissions and the oxidation catalysts to destroy effec- tively the combustion emissions from the fuels. Results obtained in our previous studies [17] revealed that pre- sulfating 1%Pt–2%Sn/c–Al 2 O 3 catalyst resulted in the generation of surface sites active at low temperature for the oxidation of a frac- tion of soot particles produced during diesel combustion. More- over, in a recent investigation [18] on the activity of pre-sulfated 1%Pt–2%Sn/c–Al 2 O 3 on the oxidation of soot generated by the com- bustion of bioethanol and of the diesel/bioethanol blends, we showed that the addition of bioethanol to the diesel fuel may be necessary to decrease diesel soot generation during combustion and to enhance the rate of the oxidation of diesel particulate mat- ter on these catalysts. In this work, we wanted to study the effect of the addition of bioethanol on the diesel combustion processes, on diesel combus- tion emissions and on the activity of pre-sulfated 1%Pt–2%Sn/ c–Al 2 O 3 during catalytic oxidation of these emissions as a function of temperature. 2. Materials and methods 2.1. Catalysts preparation The support used was c-Al 2 O 3 (Merck) with a grain size of 0.063–0.200 mm (70–230 mesh ASTM). Before use, the support was calcined for 6 h at 600 °C in air. Pt–Sn catalyst supported on alumina was prepared by impregnation using acidic aqueous 0016-2361/$ - see front matter Ó 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.fuel.2010.07.020 * Corresponding author. Tel./fax: +52 222 229 5500 7294. E-mail address: cs001380@siu.buap.mx (G. Corro). Fuel 89 (2010) 3753–3757 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Fuel journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/fuel