The present paper investigates about the production of biodiesel from neat Mahua oil via base catalyzed transesterification and mixing of the biodiesel with a suitable additive (Dimethyl carbonate) in varying volume proportions in order to prepare a number of test fuels for engine application. The prepared test fuels are used in single cylinder water cooled diesel engine at various load conditions to evaluate the performance and emission parameters of the engine. The results of investigation show increase in brake power and brake thermal efficiency with load for all prepared test fuels. It is also noticed that brake thermal efficiency increases with the percentage of additive in all the test fuels. The brake specific fuel consumption decreases with increase in additive percentage. Exhaust gas temperature increases almost linearly with load for all test fuels and decreases with increase in additive percentage. It is also seen from the results that both CO and HC emissions tend to decrease with increase in additive percent age in biodiesel. The smoke and NOx emissions also decrease with increase in additive percentage in the biodiesel fuel. During the course of this experimental investigation it was found that the overall performance and emission characteristics of the engine was satisfactory with all the test fuels and improved with repeated experiments. All the test results significantly improved with increase in the additive percentage in biodiesel. Therefore the present paper provides a strong platform to continue further investigation on using biodiesel fuel in a diesel engine with variety of fuel additives under varying engine operating parameters.
In recent times, the rapid depletion of diesel fuel has resulted in its rising price and hazardous emission from the vehicles. Hence, an alternative fuel is immediately required for substituting diesel in order to improve the country's economic status and security. Therefore, this paper investigates the performance and emission characteristics of a diesel engine operated in dual fuel mode fuelled with calophyllum inophyllum oil methyl ester blends and rice husk generated producer gas. The engine test analysis was carried out at varying load conditions (0, 2, 4, 6, 8, 10 kW) keeping the producer gas flow rate constant i.e. at 21.69 kg/h. The experimental results depict that maximum diesel savings occurred for diesel with producer gas up to 82%, when correlated with the B20 biodiesel blend showing diesel savings of up to 80.6% at 8 kW of the optimum loading condition. Now, taking into account the emission parameter i.e. CO, CO2 and HC showed an increasing trend while, NOx and the smoke opacity reduced drastically for the dual operated mode. Hence, it might be concluded that the calophyllum inophyllum oil methyl ester with producer gas at a constant gas flow rate up to a 20% blend i.e. B20 can be utilised as potential fuel for current diesel engines without many engine modifications and problems.
The present experimental study demonstrates the performance and emission characteristics of a single cylinder dual fuel diesel engine with producer gas as the primary fuel and diesel, preheated Jatropha oil and Jatropha oil methyl ester as injected fuels. In order to reduce the viscosity of Jatropha oil, a shell and tube type heat exchanger was designed and fabricated for preheating Jatropha oil using engine exhaust gas. The performance parameters, such as brake specific fuel consumption, brake thermal efficiency and exhaust gas temperature, have shown improved results with baseline diesel and producer gas, whereas the above parameters are very close to other test fuels under different loading conditions. All the emission parameters are found to be on the higher side for preheated oil-compared to diesel-producer gas dual fuel operation at all load conditions. With Jatropha oil methyl ester-producer gas dual fuel operation, however, emission parameters such as CO 2 , smoke and NOx are higher compared to diesel-producer gas operation. The smoke emission for preheated Jatropha oil-producer gas dual fuel operation is approximately 60% higher than that of diesel-producer gas operation at full load. From the present experimental investigation it may be concluded that alternative fuel combinations such as preheated Jatropha oil-producer gas and Jatropha oil methyl ester-producer gas can successfully replace diesel as the major fuel in diesel engines with little modification. The present paper also recommends further investigation to improve fuel properties and in-cylinder combustion phenomena of preheated Jatropha oil and its methyl ester before use in a diesel engine.
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