Theoretical and experimental investigations on the effect of unsaturated composition of various biodiesels on the performance of a DI diesel engine

Abstract

Neat vegetable oils are reported to cause engine deposits due to high viscosity and poor volatility Therefore biodiesel derived from vegetable oil gain popularity The problems associated with the use of biodiesel are low oxidation stability poor cold flow properties higher oxides of nitrogen newlineemissions and lower thermal efficiency Unsaturation in the biodiesel has been found to be the main reason for low oxidation stability and engine deposit Hence it was realized that the newlinebiodiesel unsaturated composition should be investigated Biodiesels produced from variety of vegetable oils which differ in fatty acid composition were taken for the study All vegetable oils were transesterified into their corresponding methyl ester at optimized reaction conditions and the process parameters were adjusted based on the oil The biodiesel fuel properties were analyzed and it was found that the properties were well within the ASTM standard The unsaturation was varied from 10 to 88 percentages by blending different biodiesels newline