Abstract

The major area of research in internal combustion engines is alternative fuels due to the financial crisis in middle east countries, depletion in crude oil resources, hike in fuel prices, and environmental degradation due to harmful exhaust pollutants. The process chosen for conversion of vegetable oil into its methyl ester is transesterification method. In our present work, investigation on performance and emissions have is done on single cylinder diesel engine by having the blends of coconut oil methyl ester and pongamia oil methyl ester without doing any further engine modifications. In this study, coconut oil methyl ester addition was kept constant as 5% by volume. Further, both methyl esters were mixed and added to with diesel, by volume of 10%, 15%, 20%, 25% and 30%. A comparison between brake thermal efficiency and brake specific fuel consumption has been done for each blend and the readings were compared with pure diesel baseline values. Exhaust emission tests were conducted for detecting the emission levels of unburnt hydrocarbons, carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides and smoke. A little rise in brake thermal efficiency was observed for lower blends across various loading conditions. Reduction in smoke level and exhaust emission level is observed on the usage of higher biodiesel blends. The final results gave us a clear idea that up to20% biodiesel blend can be very effective in both performance and emission aspects.

Authors and Affiliations