Effect of Ethanol on the Performance and Emission Characteristics of Biodiesel Fuelled Diesel Engine

Abstract

The fossil fuel resources are depleting day –by-day and there is an increasing demand of fuels which increases environmental pollution. This problem leads to stringent emission regulations which pose a challenge to science and technology to find out environmental friendly fuels. Among the renewable energy sources, biodiesel derived from vegetable oils and fats are considered as an immediate substitute for the fossil diesel in the I.C.Engines. In India, biodiesel derived from non-edible oils such as honge, jatropha, neem, mahua, simarouba etc are considered as an alternative fuels to the fossil diesel, as there is demand for the edible oils. In this work, biodiesel was produced from non-edible honge oil by two step transesterification. The honge biodiesel properties were determined and most of the fuel properties are similar to the fossil diesel. However, Biodiesel has high viscosity, lower volatility which affects the atomization and spray formation. In this regard, the alcohol such as ethanol which is having lower flash & fire point, high flammability and is produced from renewable energy sources was used as good additive for biodiesel to improve its fuel properties. In this work, the engine tests were conducted on a single cylinder, four-stroke direct injection diesel engine using diesel, honge biodiesel and ethanol blended bio-diesel in four different compositions by volume ranging from 5% to 20% . The Engine performance and emission characteristics were analysed by varying the load. From the engine test results, it was observed that, the BE5 i.e. 5% ethanol in biodiesel results in better performance than other blends and neat biodiesel operation.