Experimental investigation on the application of preheated fish oil ethyl ester as a fuel in diesel engine

Abstract

An experimental work for fuelling a single cylinder direct injection (DI) diesel engine with Fish oil ethyl ester (FOEE) and its blends to assess their impact on engine characteristics was presented. In the present work, FOEE was produced by ethanol-driven transesterification in the presence of potassium ethaoxide as an alkaline catalyst. The chemical nature of FOEE was evaluated using GC–MS analysis. Kirloskar TV1 model computerized direct injection compression ignition engine with eddy current dynamometer was used for experimentation with diesel as a baseline fuel. On the other hand, the application of FOEE was prone to reduced engine characteristics owing to its substandard properties. Therefore, the available heat energy in the engine exhaust was trapped and used for fuel preheating using shell and tube heat exchanger. To study the impact of fuel preheating, three distinct preheaters at different temperatures of 60 °C, 70 °C and 80 °C were investigated with FOEE. At high preheating temperature, FOEE exhibited improvement in engine characteristics. The best part of the present work was the depiction of engine emission results with ISO 8178 D2 (Reciprocating IC engines- Test bed measurement) testing procedure. The obtained emissions were within the bounds formulated by Central Pollution Control Board of India for genset.