Publication

Abstract : Nowadays alternative fuels are gaining more importance because of depleting crude oil resources, high rise in fuel prices, and environmental degradation due to exhaust pollutants. Transesterification process is mostly preferred for conversion of vegetable oils into useable bio diesel fuel. In the present work, performance investigation and emission examination is done on single cylinder diesel engine by usage of mixture of methyl esters of cottonseed oil and sunflower oil without doing any modifications in the engine. Here cotton seed oil methyl ester addition was kept constant as 5% by volume. For the study, both oil methyl esters were mixed and were added to diesel fuel, by volume of 10%, 15%, 20%, 25% and 30%. The effect of blends on brake specific fuel consumption and brake thermal efficiency were compared with baseline pure diesel values. Emission tests were conducted for finding the effect of blends on unburnt hydrocarbons, carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides and smoke. A slight increase in brake thermal efficiency was found for lower blends across various loading conditions. Smoke and exhaust emission decreases on usage of higher biodiesel blends. The results indicated that 20% biodiesel blend can be replaced without any major engine modifications as it gives better performance and emission characteristics. © Research India Publications.