Performance and emission characteristics of Rubber seed oil Mahua oil blended with diesel as alternate fuel to compression ignition engine

Abstract

newline Petroleum based fuels play a vital role in rapid depletion of conventional energy sources newlinealong with increasing demand and also major contributors of air pollutants. Efforts are being newlinemade throughout the world to reduce the consumption of liquid petroleum fuels wherever newlinepossible. Major portion of today s energy demand in India is being met with fossil fuels. Hence it newlineis high time that alternate fuels for engines should be derived from indigenous sources. As India newlineis an agricultural country, there is a wide scope for production of vegetable oils (both edible and newlinenon-edible) from different oil seeds. newlineThe present work is focused only on non-edible oils such as Mahua oil and Rubber seed newlineoil as fuel for engines, as the edible oils are in great demand and far too expensive. Under Indian newlineconditions only such plants can be considered for biodiesel, which produce non-edible oils in newlineappreciable quantity and can be grown in large scale on non-cropped marginal lands and waste newlinelands. Biodiesel is gaining prominence as a substitute fuel for diesel due to their portability, newlineready availability, renewability, higher heat content, lower sulfur content, lower aromatic content newlineand biodegradability. newlineDirect use of vegetable oil in diesel engine poses many problems. Major problems newlineassociated with vegetable oils are higher viscosities, lower heating values, raise in stoichiometric newlinefuel air ratio and thermal cracking. The author has focused on the utilization of two non-edible newlineoil methyl esters and diesel blends in the engines. To convert vegetable oils in to biodiesel, the newlinetransesterification process was found to be the most viable process compared to other process newlinelike blending, micro emulsification, dilution etc.