Combustion Characteristics of Single Cylinder Diesel Engine Fueled with Blends of Thumba Biodiesel as an Alternative Fuel

Abstract

The rapid rise in energy requirement and problem regarding atmosphere pollutions, renewable biofuels are the better alternative choice for the internal combustion engine to partially or totally replace the pollutant petroleum fuel. In the present work, thumba (Citrullus colocynthis) non-edible vegetable oil is used for the production of biodiesel and examine its possibility as diesel engine fuel. Transesterification process is used to produce biodiesel from thumba non-edible vegetable oil. Thumba biodiesel (TBD) is used to prepare five different volume concentration (blends) with neat diesel (D100), such as TBD5, TBD15, TBD25, TBD35 and TBD45 to run a single cylinder diesel engine. The diesel engine's combustion parameter such as in-cylinder pressure, rate of pressure rise, net heat release rate, cumulative heat release, mean gas temperature, and mass fraction burnt analyzed through graphs and compared all thumba biodiesel blends result with neat diesel fuel. The mass fraction burnt start earlier for thumba biodiesel blends compared to diesel fuel because of less ignition delay while peak in-cylinder pressure, maximum rate of pressure rise, maximum net heat release rate, maximum cumulative heat release, and maximum mean gas temperature has found decreased results up to 1.93%, 5.53%, 4.11%, 4.65%, and 1.73% respectively for thumba biodiesel.