Identifying the effect of aromatic compounds on the combustion characteristics of crude coconut oil droplet

Abstract

For now, energy sources uses are still dominated by fossil fuels, whose availability is limited and continues to decline. Therefore, new alternative energy is needed to reduce dependence on fossil fuels. Crude vegetable oil is one alternative energy source that can be utilized as a substitute for fossil fuels because vegetable oil has a composition almost similar to fossil fuel. Crude coconut oil is an alternative to biodiesel to reduce dependency on fossil fuels. The combustion reaction of crude coconut oil is tricky because it has bonds saturated chain, so a substance is needed to weaken the carbon chain to increase the burning rate. The burning rate of coconut oil droplets has been investigated experimentally by adding clove oil and eucalyptus oil bio-additives. Tests were carried out with single droplets suspended on a thermocouple at atmospheric pressure and room temperature and ignited with a hot wire. The addition of clove oil and eucalyptus oil as bio-additives in crude coconut oil was 100 ppm and 300 ppm, respectively. The suspended droplet combustion method was chosen to increase the contact area between the air and fuel so that the reactivity of the fuel molecules increases. The results showed that the eugenol compounds in clove oil and cineol compounds in eucalyptus oil were both aromatic and had an unsymmetrical carbon chain geometry structure. Therefore, this factor has the potential to accelerate the occurrence of effective collisions between fuel molecules; thus, the fuel is flammable, as evidenced by the increased burning rate. Moreover, from the observations, it was found that the highest burning rate was achieved in both bio-additives with a concentration of 300 ppm