Notable improvement of fuel properties of waste tire pyrolysis oil by blending a novel pumpkin seed oil–biodiesel

Abstract

A comprehensive fuel property using neat diesel, neat tire (100% tire oil after distillation of crude tire oil from pyrolysis process) oil, diesel–tire oil blend and diesel–tire oil–biodiesel blends were investigated in this study. The tire oil was derived from waste tire by pyrolysis process at a temperature of 450 °C. The tire oil was upgraded by the fractional distillation process. Different proportions (10 vol% and 20 vol%) of waste tire oil were mixed with a reference diesel fuel. Various ratios, including 10 vol% and 20 vol% biodiesel was blended with waste tire oil and waste tire oil–diesel blends to examine the fuel properties with a target to use the different fuel blends as compression ignition (CI) engine’s fuel. A novel pumpkin seed oil (Cucurbita pepo) biodiesel was chosen due to its abundant availability and renewable nature. The reason for blending pumpkin seed oil–biodiesel is to improve the waste tire oil fuel properties and investigate the influence of fuel oxygen on different fuel properties. Binary blends, including tire oil–diesel, tire oil–biodiesel, and ternary blends, including diesel–tire oil–biodiesel, were prepared for the tests. The properties tested in this investigation were density, viscosity, higher and lower heating value, smoke limit, flash point, fire point, aniline point, pour point, cloud point, cetane number, sulphur and carbon residue, proton nuclear magnetic resonance (1H NMR), Fourier transform infra-red (FTIR) spectroscopy and elemental analysis (CHONS). The comprehensive fuel property results showed that all binary and ternary blends show similar properties compared to reference diesel. Although the binary blends of tire oil and biodiesel indicate a little inferior property than reference diesel fuel, they can be used as fuels for compression ignition engines.