Diesel engines are widely used for propulsion on large ships, which has the undesired characteristic of generating large amounts of harmful emissions. To reduce these emissions, some alternative fuel was developed and used in a marine diesel engine. In this study, an experiment was carried out on a 6-cylinder turbocharged direct-injection marine diesel propulsion engine. A small proportion blend of biodiesel-diesel was used, aimed at exploring the emission characteristics and emission reduction mechanism for diesel propulsion engines. The results show that the high oxygen content of biodiesel blend is crucial for inhibiting the formation of particulate matter (PM) and reducing the formation of total unburned hydrocarbon (THC) and carbon monoxide (CO), which reduces the emission of harmful gases. At the same time, the number of particles (PN) has also decreased. However, the rapid burn rate of biodiesel was found to reduce brake thermal efficiency (BTE), resulting in an increase of fuel consumption and exhaust gas temperature (EGT), which can promote the formation of nitrogen oxides (NO_x). More carbon dioxide (CO₂) is released due to the increased fuel consumption. The emission characteristics of the biodiesel blend and diesel fuel are discussed in this work.