Performance and emission analysis of high purity biodiesel blends in diesel engine

Abstract

Biodiesel, a biodegradable, highly oxygenated and renewable energy resource, is produced by esterification of vegetable oils. This work focuses on using electrolytic separation and emulsification to produce purer biodiesel having high cetane index of 61.4. Vegetable oil mixture is used as feedstock. Maximum production yield is 84%. The decrease in engine peak torque was minimum for B5 at 1.94% while maximum decrease was for B20. B5 show a slight increase in power while B20 and B50 show significant drop. For all test speeds, B50 shows higher efficiency than all test fuels however the BSFC was significantly higher than diesel until 88.8% of the maximum engine speed. The maximum increase in brake thermal efficiency for B5 is found to be 2.09% which is 7.9% more than diesel at 2000 rpm. A significant increase of maximum 3.719% in brake specific fuel consumption (BSFC) is observed. Maximum reduction in CO emissions is 53.3% for B50 at 2250 rpm accompanied with a maximum average drop in HCs of 74.4%. The variation in the NOx is insignificant. B5 is found to be the most effective blend for both maintaining the engine performance and improving the engine emissions.