Abstract
Global oil reserves are facing great stress because of massive fuel consumption worldwide and the booming world population. These fossil fuels, when processed, affect the environment by releasing greenhouse gases. The outstanding usage of oil inspired many countries to develop alternative fuels. Biodiesel is the future prospect to fulfil the energy needs. It is compatible, ready to use fuel and can easily be deployed in the existing engines by combining it with conventional fuel (diesel). Biodiesel emits a lower amount of greenhouse gases. In this experiment, we first synthesized biodiesel using methanol, NaOH and vegetable oil through transestrification process. After that, we prepared a sample for 14% biodiesel which was then used to run a 4-stroke compression ignition (CI) engine that was attached to the engine testbed. After that, we re-run the same 4-stroke CI Engine with pure-diesel. From the data obtained and subsequent data-analysis, the 14% biodiesel came out to be less efficient (avg. 3% lower brake power and 8.9% lower brake thermal efficiency) and more expensive (avg. 12.8% higher fuel consumption) as compared to pure-diesel.
Highlights
Today, the global population is increasing at a rapid pace and the countries around the world are consuming a massive amount of fossil fuels each day in order to meet the needs of the growing population and industry
The graph shows that the specific fuel consumption of diesel is less than that of a mixture of biodiesel and diesel
One of the major drawbacks of using biodiesel is that it is more expensive than conventional fuels (Diesel, Petrol etc.)
Summary
The global population is increasing at a rapid pace and the countries around the world are consuming a massive amount of fossil fuels each day in order to meet the needs of the growing population and industry. Energy consumption is found to increase by 2% per year due to the transportation sector (Songstad et al, 2011) On one side, such a large scale use of fossil fuels (oil, gas, coal etc.) is causing depletion and shortness of energy rsources for our future generations while on the other hand, the fossil fuels themselves are creating environmental issues such as global warming and climate change (Ge et al 2015; Kim et al, 2018; Liu et al, 2018; Niculescu et al, 2019). The world is shifting towards renewable energy sources as they are considered an environment-friendly replacement for fossil fuel. Biodiesel is an environment-friendly fuel that can be produced by either esterification or transesterification (Sheehan et al, 1998) It can be used with pure diesel in a concentration of up to 20% and has a calorific value very much comparable to that of pure diesel (Van Gerpen, 2005). The focus of our study is the performance characteristics; combustion characteristics or exhaust emissions have not been discussed
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