Performance and emission study on waste cooking oil biodiesel and distillate blends for microturbine application

Abstract

Biodiesel is defined as domestic renewable energy resource, which can be derived from natural oils through the transesterification. The implementation of biodiesel is essential due to the energy depletion crisis and the impact on exacerbating environment caused by rapid consumption of conventional diesel. Waste cooking oil (WCO) was used as the raw material to produce biodiesel in order to reduce wastes polluting the environment. This paper studies the technical potential of WCO biodiesel to be used as an alternative fuel for microturbine. The ASTM D6751 and ASTM D2881 standards were selected as references to evaluate the compatibility with distillate to be used as a microturbine fuel. The performance and emission tests were conducted employing a 30 kW microturbine, without any modification, using biodiesel and distillate blends up to maximum of 20% biodiesel mixing ratio. It was found that the thermal efficiency peaked at 20% biodiesel blend with distillate, despite the fact that biodiesel had a lower calorific value and a higher fuel consumption. The emission test results showed reduction of CO emission by increasing the WCO biodiesel mixing ratio, while NOx emission was dependent on the exhaust gas temperature. In conclusion, biodiesel derived from WCO has the potential to substitute distillate in the microturbine application.