Publications

Abstract : Biofuels have the potential to partially replace the conventional liquid fuels as a blend used in the IC engines. Apart from several non-edible vegetable oils, waste cooking oil can also be used to produce biodiesel after simple esterification. Potassium hydroxide (KOH) and Sodium hydroxide (NaOH) are used here as reagents in the esterification of waste cooking oil. The biodiesel blends are prepared in different proportions of waste cooking oil methyl ester (WCOME) and the physical properties of these blends are studied. In this work experimental runs are carried out with different biodiesel blends (0-40%) to evaluate the performance and emission characteristics of a single cylinder CI engine. A minor decrease in thermal efficiency is observed while increasing the quantity of waste cooking oil methyl ester (WCOME) in the blend. However, a considerable improvement in reduction of smoke, carbon monoxide (CO) and unburnt hydrocarbons (HC) emission are observed compared to diesel when blended with 20% WCOME. Emissions of CO and unburnt HC decrease upto 7%. Among all the blends least oxides of nitrogen (NOx) emission happens with 30% waste cooking oil methyl ester.