In the present work, an experiment on ternary blends made of n-hexanol, diesel and Calophyllum Inophyllum methyl ester was conducted to compare the emission, performance and combustion characteristics to that of pure diesel and Calophyllum Inophyllum methyl ester. In the present research work, all the ternary blends were prepared by keeping the diesel weight percentage as a constant at 50% by volume, the Calophyllum Inophyllum methyl ester and hexanol concentrations were varied by volume and the developed blends were used for the comprehensive analysis. The brake thermal efficiency was observed to be significantly higher for the hexanol blends; especially for 40% hexanol is closer to that of pure diesel at elevated brake mean effective pressures. Also, the brake specific fuel consumptions are observed to be lower than that of pure CIME. Emissions such as hydrocarbon, smoke opacity and carbon monoxide were found to be significantly lower than the diesel. However, the NOx and carbon dioxide emissions for alcohol blends remained marginally higher compared to diesel. A significant improvement in the combustion characteristics such as the in-cylinder pressures and net HRR figures were observed when compared to pure biodiesel. Therefore, from the results, it is recommended that the 30% and 40% of n-hexanol blends with further study can suitably be a potential alternative for pure diesel. © 2019 Elsevier Ltd