Performance and emission characteristics assessment of compression ignition engine fuelled with the blends of novel antioxidant catechol-daok biodiesel

Abstract

The present study is aimed to discover and equate effect of daok biodiesel-diesel and daok biodiesel-antioxidant additive catechol-diesel blends on performance and emission characteristics (PEC) of a direct-injection diesel engine. Tests are conducted on daok biodiesel percentage of 10, 20, 40, 60 and 100% at variable engine loads and compression ratios (CRs) with 1500 rpm. At First, several pilot experiments are conducted among the doak biodiesel-diesel blends and found B20 as the optimum blend based on PEC of the engine. At rated speed of 1500 rpm, compression ratio is altered for the blend B20 and identified better engine PEC at CR 17.5. Then, 0.5, 1.5 and 2.5% of antioxidant catechol (CAT) additive is blended with B20 and investigated the PEC of the engine operating at CR17.5. Tested fuel blends indicated that the 2.5% of CAT in B20 blend produced better performance and yielded 6.45% rise in BTE, while 1.5% of CAT in B20 blend diminished CO and HC emissions by 26.08%, and 18.75% respectively as compared to B20 blend. It was also shown that adding CAT at a concentration of 0.5%–2.5% in a B20 biodiesel blend is sufficient for a considerable improvement in oxidation stability without affecting the physicochemical qualities. As a result, a low-cost CAT additive in daok biodiesel and diesel fuel can be used in direct injection diesel engines without requiring any additional engine configuration changes.