Combustion and emission characteristics of light duty diesel engine fueled with transesterified algae biodiesel by K2CO3/ZnO heterogeneous base catalyst

Abstract

ABSTRACT The present study analyzes performance of algae biodiesel in low-powered single-cylinder diesel engine running at rated constant speed of 1500 rpm and 210 bar fuel injection pressure. Algae biodiesel was prepared from Spirulina algae species and transesterified using heterogeneous base catalyst K2CO3/ZnO and methanol. Experiments were conducted with algae biodiesel blended with diesel fuel in 5%, 10%, 15% & 20% proportion on volume basis designated as ABD5, ABD10, and ABD15 & ABD20, respectively. Results reported that an increase in algae biodiesel content in diesel blends decreased the cylinder pressure and ignition delay compared to straight diesel fuel. ABD20 reported 13.42% higher brake thermal efficiency than the diesel. NOx increased with an increase in algae biodiesel content. The peak heat release for ABD15 was 1.1 kJ which was higher than the other blends. ABD15 depicted shorter ignition delay, less cylinder peak pressure, and less exhaust gas temperature compared to the other fuel blends. Further ABD15 showed 20% and 3.97% reduction in smoke compared to ABD20 at 3/4th and full load engine operating conditions, respectively, also depicted a reduction of 12.8% compared to neat diesel.