Performance and emissions of an agricultural diesel engine fuelled with different diesel and methyl ester blends

I Milan,V Sanchez-Giron,M Camps,J L Ponce De Leon

doi:10.5424/sjar/2010082-1215

I Milan, V Sanchez-Giron + Show 2 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.5424/sjar/2010082-1215

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Abstract

This paper shows the results of an investigation carried out to assess the application of different fuels produced by blending diesel fuel with methyl ester obtained from mixture of 75% (v/v) sunflower oil and 25% (v/v) used cooking oil on a Kubota agricultural indirect injection diesel engine, natural aspirated, and with a rated horsepower of 19.7 kW. Seven fuels, namely diesel fuel; 90:10, 80:20, 70:30, 50:50, 25:75 and 0:100 (%v/v) blends were prepared and tested for the performance of the diesel engine in accordance with the standardised OECD test code 2. The test results showed that the performance of the engine was satisfactory without a significant reduction in power output and torque with blends smaller than 50%. Fuel consumptions with biodiesel were higher than that when fuelled with diesel but differences were not very marked up to 30% blends. As the reduction of the engine thermal efficiency was less than the corresponding reduction in heating value of the different biodiesel blends, the latter resulted in a more complete combustion in comparison with diesel fuel. The oxides of nitrogen (NOx) emissions were found to be reduced as the biodiesel concentration increase, particularly with 70% and 100% blends. The emissions of carbon monoxide (CO) were lower and increased at a lower rate with the oxygen concentration of the exhaust as the biodiesel blends were equal or higher than 50%.

Highlights

Biodiesel is a renewable alternative fuel consisting of monoesters of vegetable oils and animal fats that can replace diesel fuel in compression ignition engines
Engine power averaged across operating points significantly decreased as the amount of methyl ester increased in the fuel, the statistical analysis did not detect any differences in the engine power measured in all six operating points with fuels B20 and B30, and between diesel and B10 fuels in P5
Based on the results of the tests conducted with an agricultural diesel engine fuelled with different biodiesel blends the following conclusions may be drawn:

Summary

Introduction

Biodiesel is a renewable alternative fuel consisting of monoesters of vegetable oils and animal fats that can replace diesel fuel in compression ignition engines. The fuel is not distributed or mixed with the air required for burning in the combustion chamber and this result in poor combustion accompanied by loss of power and economy (Agarwal et al, 2007). These effects can be reduced through transesterification of the raw oil to form monoesters which are known as biodiesel (Zhang et al, 1988; Perkins et al, 1991). The use of biodiesel in Diesel engines require no hardware modifications either if it is blended with diesel fuel or used in its pure form (Agarwal et al, 2007)

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