Experimental investigation on performance emission and combustion characteristics of biodiesel in a DI diesel engine

Abstract

The automobile sector which is growing day by day consumes the fossil fuel more than its growth hence there is a demand for exploring new sources of fuels for existing engines In this respect biodiesel have been proposed as an alternate solution for increasing of energy demand and environmental awareness Among different non edible vegetable oils which can be used as alternate fuels five vegetable oils ie Nerium Jatropha Pongamia Mahua and Neem oils are selected for the study In India forest and plant based non edible oils are considered as the main sources for bio diesel production Non edible oils such as Jatropha Karanja Mahua and Neem are easily available in the market However it is not easy to get either Nerium oil or bio diesel of Nerium oil as easily as other oils Hence for this research work well grown Nerium seeds are collected in and around Tamil Nadu India A single cylinder stationary kirloskar diesel engine of 6 2 kW at 1800 rpm was used for the experimental investigations In the first phase the comparision of performance emission and combustion characteristics of diesel and biodiesel blends have been carried out at standard injection timing of 27 bTDC with a standard injection pressure of 200 bar and with a standard compression ratio of 17 5 1 newlineto identify the best biodiesel blend to achieve best thermal efficiency and lower emission of the engine The biodiesel blends are in percentage of 20 40 60 80 and 100 of methyl ester of vegetable oil to 80 60 40 20 0 of diesel by volumetric basis newline