Synthesis and characterization of biodiesel from ceiba pentandra and its performance study in vcr engine

Abstract

Swelling concerns with reference to environmental impacts the continued rise in the price of petroleum products the exhaustion of fossil fuels and strict regulations on exhaust emissions have required the substitution of fossil fuels thereby causing less environmental degradation and easily available renewable fuels for use in internal combustion engines From the point of view of protecting the global environment and the concern for long term supplies of conventional petroleum fuels it becomes indispensable to develop unconventional sources of fuels comparable to conventional petroleum fuels In this context the low cost low value kapok seeds are commonly used as food for livestock and as fertilizer and the byproduct crude oil which is extracted may be used as a cheap reliable source of feedstock for producing biodiesel newlineIn the present work oil extraction was carried out by soxhlet extraction method. The physic chemical properties of the extracted kapok seed oil were examined The density of the extracted kapok seed oil was 923.1 kg/m³ kinematic viscosityat 40°C was 34.75 cSt and Acid Value 11.13 mg KOH/g oil The GC MS results of the kapok seed oil also confirm the presence of hem hexadecanoic acid octadecadienoate acid and octadecanoic acid as biodiesel components in crude kapok seed oil newlineFrom the experimental results it was observed that the use of kapok seed oil as fuel in engine is restricted due to operational and durability problems newline newline