Performance and Emissions of Sunflower, Rapeseed, and Cottonseed Oils as Fuels in an Agricultural Tractor Engine

Abstract

A comparative experimental investigation was conducted to evaluate the performance and exhaust emissions of an agricultural tractor engine when fueled with sunflower oil, rapeseed oil, and cottonseed oil and their blends with diesel fuel (20/80, 40/60 and 70/30 volumetrically). Tests were also carried out with diesel fuel to be used as a reference point. Engine power, torque, BSFC, thermal efficiency, NO x and CO 2 were recorded for each tested fuel. All vegetable oils resulted in normal operation without problems during the short-term experiments. The 20/80 blends showed unstable results, in comparison to higher oil content fuels. Power, Torque and BSFC were higher as oil content was increased in the fuel. Rapeseed oil fuels showed increased power, torque and thermal efficiency with simultaneous lower BSFC in comparison to the other two vegetable oils. Cottonseed oil fuels gave better engine performance than sunflower oil fuels. In all oil types, NO x emissions were augmented when fuel oil percentage was increased. Cottonseed oil fuels led to higher NO x emission increase compared to rapeseed oil fuels. CO 2 emissions showed a tendency to be increased as the oil content was evolved. The highest CO 2 emissions were given by cottonseed oil fuels, followed by rapeseed and sunflower oil.

Vegetable Oils of Soybean, Sunflower and Tung as Alternative Fuels for Compression Ignition Engines

“…This behavior is also commonly reported in the literature (Aksoi, 2010;Altin et al, 2001;Chalatlon et al, 2011;Kleinova et al, 2009;Martin & Prithviraj, 2011;Maziero et al, 2007;Pugazhvadivu & Sankaranarayanan, 2010;Raghu et al, 2011;Sarada et al, 2010;Sivalakshmi & Balusamy, 2011;Venkanna et al, 2009). As an exception, Balafoutis et al (2011) reported higher power at higher loads when using cottonseed, rapeseed and sunflower in a turbo charged, CI engine. In their tests, at high loads, the speed reduced and the specific consumption increased.…”

“…Cottonseed (Gossypium hirsutum and Gossypium herbaceum) Altin et al (2001); Amba & Rama (2003); He & Bao (2005); Fontaras et al (2007); Sarada et al (2010); Balafoutis et al (2011);Martin & Prithviraj (2011). Corn (Zea mays) Altin et al (2001).…”

“…Although the fuel mass injected per cycle decreases, the BSFC increases with speed. Balafoutis et al (2011) report 229 g/kWh as the best BSFC for their engine operating with neat diesel oil. Also, they report a 15 % maximum increase in BSFC for operation with neat sunflower oil.…”

“…All other efficiencies decrease with the increase of engine speed. Balafoutis et al (2011) have reported an increase of 8 % over the efficiency of neat diesel oil when neat rapeseed oil is used (reaching 39 % thermal efficiency), 2 % with cotton seed and a drop of 3 % for sunflower. Here, best efficiencies (around 38 %) are achieved with sunflower, which is about 6% higher than that for neat diesel.…”

Thermal characterization of castor oil as additive in lubricant oil using photothermal techniques

“…The awareness of pollution, scarce of fossil fuels and the environmental footprint, are rising and they are subject of important research around the world, regarding fuels there is an important concern about the development of ecological friendly combustibles and two main research lines have been developed, the first one is the introduction of the so-called biodiesel, and the second one is the improvement of the existing fuels [1][2][3][4][5].…”