Abstract
The performance of groundnut ethyl ester blended with diesel in a compression ignition engine was experimentally determined. Groundnut oil reacted with ethanol to produce ethyl esters in a two-step transesterification process. The ethyl-esters were blended with automotive gas oil at (0 to 20%) mix with 5% increment of groundnut ethyl-esters to produce biodiesel. The performance of a 2.46 kW diesel engine was evaluated using the groundnut biodiesel at five loading conditions (0, 25, 50, 75 and 100% of full load). Automotive gas oil was used as a reference diesel fuel. The engine torque had a peak value of 8.5 Nm at full load, while the peak value of speed was 1300 rev/min at 25% full load when using 15% groundnut ester-AGO blend. The exhaust gas temperature had a peak value of 420°C at full load when using 5% groundnut ester-AGO blend. There were no significant differences (p>0.05) in average values of torque, speed and exhaust gas temperature of the engine for groundnut biodiesel and automotive gas oil. Groundnut biodiesel can be used to fuel a diesel engine. Key words: Groundnut oil, ethyl esters, biodiesel, diesel engine.
Highlights
Vegetable oils have attracted attention as potential renewable resources for the production of alternatives for petroleum based diesel fuel known as automotive gas oil (AGO)
Biodiesel can be used in its pure form to fuel any existing diesel engine, and it can be blended with petroleum diesel (Shrestha et al, 2005)
The performance of a 2.46 kW diesel engine at various loads using AGO and groundnut ethyl ester-AGO blends was evaluated in terms of torque, exhaust gas temperature, speed, brake specific fuel consumption, brake thermal efficiency, fuel equivalent power and brake power
Summary
Vegetable oils have attracted attention as potential renewable resources for the production of alternatives for petroleum based diesel fuel known as automotive gas oil (AGO). Various biofuels derived from vegetable oils have been proposed as alternative fuels for diesel engines, including neat vegetable oils, mixtures of vegetable oil with AGO and alcohol esters of vegetable oil (Ma and Hanna, 1999). Alcohol esters of vegetable oils known more generically as biodiesel appear to be the most promising alternative to petroleum based diesel fuel (Krawczyk, 1996; Conceicaco et al, 2005). In its most general sense, biodiesel is any biomass derived diesel fuel substitute (Sheehan et al, 1998a). Most commonly, it refers to various ester-based oxygenated fuels composed of vegetable oils or animal fats (Hobbs, 2003). The physical and chemical properties of biodiesel fuel are similar to petroleum diesel fuel
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