Pongamia Biodiesel Research Articles

Glycerin-Free Synthesis of Jatropha and Pongamia Biodiesel in Supercritical Dimethyl and Diethyl Carbonate

To overcome the fear of glycerin glut formation based on biodiesel production process, the present study is aimed at investigation of glycerin-free biodiesel process under nonconventional synthesis conditions. Accordingly, glycerin-free synthesis of biodiesel from nonedible oils viz. jatropha and pongamia oils under supercritical conditions has been investigated with either dimethyl carbonate (DMC) or diethyl carbonate (DEC) as methylating agent. Typically, supercritical conditions with 40:1 molar ratio of DMC or DEC to oil at 325 °C/150 bar have been found to be adequate to achieve nearly complete conversion in 45 min. Furthermore, reaction kinetics has been investigated under supercritical conditions of DMC and DEC in the temperature range 250–350 °C at 150 bar. Estimated activation energies (Ea), are on the order of 38.0 ± 2 and 35.5 ± 2 kJ/mol for DMC and 40.4 ± 2 and 38.2 ± 2 kJ/mol for DEC, for conversion of jatropha and pongamia oils, respectively, with pseudo-first-order kinetics. The prepared bio...

Prospects of biodiesel from Pongamia in India

Pongamia is forest-based tree containing non-edible oil and has a large production potential of biodiesel which can grow on any type of soil, needs minimum input and management, have low moisture demand, productive life is more than 40 years and seeds have 28–34% oil content. Biodiesel yield of 99% is obtained from Pongamia oil by transesterification under the molar ratio of 6:1 of alcohol to oil with Sodium hydroxide as a catalyst of 0.5 vol% and operating temperature of 60 °C with time for production process being 1 h. The study shows that brake specific fuel consumption and brake thermal efficiency of B20 biodiesel from Pongamia is quite comparable to diesel. The hydrocarbon and carbon monoxide gas emissions are quite low in case of Pongamia biodiesel as compared to diesel. This paper describes the various aspects of Pongamia as potential fuel in India.

Combustion and Emission Characteristics of a Diesel Engine Fuelled with Biodiesel Having Varying Saturated Fatty Acid Composition

The present work is concerned with the performance, emission, and combustion characteristics of vegetable oil esters with varying saturated and unsaturated fatty acid composition tested in a stationary direct injection compression ignition engine. Saturated fatty acids (SFAs) are long-chain carboxylic acids that usually have between 12 and 24 carbon atoms and have no double bonds. Unsaturated fatty acids resemble SFAs, except that the chain has one or more double bonds. SFAs have all the hydrogen that the carbon atom can hold and therefore have no double bond between the carbon atoms. The biodiesels were derived from Pongamia, Ricebran, Sunflower, and Palm oil, respectively. The results show that Pongamia biodiesel gives a higher brake thermal efficiency (33.36% when compared to diesel, which has 32.57%) slightly higher Oxides of Nitrogen [NOX] and reduced carbon monoxide (CO), unburnt hydrocarbon (UHC), and smoke emissions when compared to diesel and other biodiesels. The cetane number for Pongamia oil, Ricebran oil, Sunflower oil, Palm oil, and diesel are 52, 50, 51, 56, and 48, respectively. The higher cetane number reduces ignition delay and also reduces NOX emissions when compared to other esters that have a greater unsaturated fatty acid composition.

Performance Improvement on a Single Cylinder Diesel Engine Powered with Pongamia Biodiesel by Incorporating Swirling Grooves

The motive of the experimentation is to improve the combustion of the direct injection diesel engine powered with biodiesel blend. Initial experimentation was made with the diesel in a conventional unmodified diesel engine. By careful literature survey and technical reviews 20% blend of Pongamia biodiesel with 80% of diesel (B20) had been taken as a test fuel. The swirl motion inside combustion chamber is increased by means of providing the swirling grooves over the piston crown with constant depth 2 mm and variable width of 5.5mm, 6.5 mm and 7.5 mm, unless the previous work done by researches the care has been taken to maintain the compression ratio of the engine. Among the various configurations, the swirling grooves of depth 2mm and width 6.5 mm showed the increase in brake thermal efficiency up to 11 % and decreasing trends in hydrocarbon, carbon monoxide, and smoke emissions. Thus the findings of the present work showed the increase in performance and reduction in the emission of the direct injection diesel engine fuelled with Pongamia biodiesel blend.

Comparison of Performance and Emission Characteristic of Tamanu, Mahua and Pongamia Biodiesel in a Di Diesel Engine

Random extraction and consumption of fossil fuels have leads to a reduction in petroleum reserves. As for as developing countries like India is connected the need to search for alternative fuels is most urgent as India is heavily dependent upon the import of petroleum to meet its demands for automotive and power sectors. This has inspired curiously in alternative sources for petroleum based fuels. An alternative fuel must be economically competitive and environmentally acceptable. India has great potential for production of biofuels like Biodiesel from vegetable seeds. In the quest to find an alternative to the existing diesel and petrol fuels various Biodiesel and alcohol has been tried and tested in the Internal Compression engine. In this direction, an attempt has been made to investigate the performance and emission characteristic of Biodiesels and compare it with diesel. The Biodiesels considered are Tamanu, Mahua and Pongamia were tested with four stroke diesel engine. A drastic improvement in reduction of Hydrocarbon (HC) and Carbon monoxide (CO) were found for Biodiesels at high engine loads. Smoke and Nitrogen oxides (NOx) were slightly higher for Biodiesels. Biodiesels exposed similar combustion stages to diesel fuel. Therefore use of transesterified vegetable oils can be partially substituted for the diesel fuel at most operating conditions in term of the performance parameters and emissions without any engine modification.

Influences of re-entrant combustion chamber geometry on the performance of Pongamia biodiesel in a DI diesel engine

In this experimental study, the influences of re-entrant combustion chamber geometry on a diesel engine emission, performance and on the combustion were investigated using Pongamia Oil Methyl Ester (POME). For this purpose, the pistons with Toroidal Re-entrant Combustion Chamber (TRCC) and Shallow Depth Re-entrant Combustion Chamber having the same volume as that of the baseline Hemispherical open Combustion Chamber were tested in a four stroke, single cylinder, DI diesel engine. Two fuels namely, 20 percent POME blend (20% POME) with petroleum based diesel fuel (PBDF) and PBDF were used for this study. The test results for re-entrant type combustion chambers fuelled with 20% POME and PBDF were compared with baseline engine having hemispherical open type combustion chamber operated with PBDF and 20% POME blend. The test results showed that substantially higher brake thermal efficiency and lower specific fuel consumption for TRCC compared to baseline engine fuelled with 20% POME. Sharp reduction of particulates, CO and UBHC were observed for TRCC compared to the other two. However oxides of nitrogen (NOx) were higher for TRCC. The combustion analysis shows that, the ignition delay is lower for TRCC compared to baseline engine and the peak pressure is also higher at full load.

Effects of open combustion chamber geometries on the performance of pongamia biodiesel in a DI diesel engine

The present work investigates the effect of varying the combustion chamber geometry on the performance of a diesel engine using biodiesel in terms of brake specific fuel consumption, brake thermal efficiency as well as exhaust emissions and combustion characteristics. Engine tests have been carried out using a blend of 20% Pongamia Oil Methyl Ester (POME) with standard diesel as fuel and with three types of combustion chambers namely Hemispherical combustion chamber, Toroidal combustion chamber and Shallow depth combustion chamber without altering the compression ratio of the engine. The test results showed that brake thermal efficiency for toroidal combustion chamber is higher than for the other two types of combustion chambers. Significant improvement in reduction of particulates, carbon monoxide and unburnt hydrocarbons is observed for toroidal combustion chamber compared to the other two. However oxides of nitrogen were slightly higher for toroidal combustion chamber. The combustion analysis shows improved characteristics for toroidal combustion chamber compared to baseline engine at all loads of operation.

Studies on the effect of antioxidants on the long-term storage and oxidation stability of Pongamia pinnata (L.) Pierre biodiesel

This study investigates the impact of various synthetic phenolic antioxidants on the oxidation stability and storage stability of Pongamia (karanja) biodiesel (PBD). The results of Rancimat experiments show that the induction point (IP) increased substantially on adding certain antioxidants to the Pongamia biodiesel. The study reveals pyrogallol (PY) to be the best antioxidant to show the best improvement in the oxidative stability of PBD, the induction time being enhanced to 34.35h at a PY concentration of 3000ppm at 110°C. The storage stability studies were carried out according to the ASTM standard procedures 1) ASTM D4625 at 30°C/50weeks and 2) ASTM D4625 at 43°C/12weeks by adding different antioxidants like BHT, BHA, PY, GA and TBHQ. The effectiveness of these five antioxidants on PBD was examined at varying loading levels during the storage period.

Investigation on the effect of injection system parameters on performance and emission characteristics of a twin cylinder compression ignition direct injection engine fuelled with pongamia biodiesel–diesel blend using response surface methodology

This study is aimed at investigating the effect of injection system parameters such as injection pressure, injection timing and nozzle tip protrusion on the performance and emission characteristics of a twin cylinder water cooled naturally aspirated CIDI engine. Biodiesel, derived from pongamia seeds through transesterification process, blended with diesel was used as fuel in this work. The experiments were designed using a statistical tool known as Design of Experiments (DoE) based on response surface methodology (RSM). The resultant models of the response surface methodology were helpful to predict the response parameters such as Brake Specific Energy Consumption (BSEC), Brake Thermal Efficiency (BTE), Carbon monoxide (CO), Hydrocarbon (HC), smoke opacity and Nitrogen Oxides (NOx) and further to identify the significant interactions between the input factors on the responses. The results depicted that the BSEC, CO, HC and smoke opacity were lesser, and BTE and NOx were higher at 2.5mm nozzle tip protrusion, 225bar of injection pressure and at 30°BTDC of injection timing. Optimization of injection system parameters was performed using the desirability approach of the response surface methodology for better performance and lower NOx emission. An injection pressure of 225bar, injection timing of 21°BTDC and 2.5mm nozzle tip protrusion were found to be optimal values for the pongamia biodiesel blended diesel fuel operation in the test engine of 7.5kW at 1500rpm.

Microwave-assisted batch synthesis of Pongamia biodiesel

Background: The major bottleneck of biodiesel synthesis is its cost and this is mainly attributed to the feedstock material. Pongamia pinnata oil is a nonedible oil that is available in plenty in India and has negligible applications. Several methods of synthesis have been established, each having their own advantages and disadvantages. Results & discussion: Biodiesel from high-free fatty acid, nonedible, Pongamia oil was synthesized under microwave irradiation with single- and two-step methods. Experimental investigations showed that although the single-step method had a high yield (80%), the acid value of biodiesel was quite high. Hence, the two-step method seems to be a better approach as it yielded 90%, with 1:10 oil:methanol molar ratio and 1 wt% KOH. Along with a decrease in the reaction time to 4–5 min, separation time was also decreased by at least 90%. A conventional heating method was employed to compare the effects of microwave irradiation on biodiesel synthesis. Conclusion: The results indicate significant improvement in the yield, reaction time and processing time of biodiesel under microwave irradiation. The synthesis of Pongamia biodiesel under microwave irradiation could perhaps lead to cost effective and faster technology in countries such as India.

Investigations on emission characteristics of the pongamia biodiesel–diesel blend fuelled twin cylinder compression ignition direct injection engine using exhaust gas recirculation methodology and dimethyl carbonate as additive

Experiments were carried out on a twin cylinder direct injection compression ignition engine using pongamia biodiesel–diesel blend as fuel with exhaust gas recirculation (EGR) and dimethyl carbonate (DMC) as additive. The experimental results showed that pongamia biodiesel–diesel blend fuelled engine with EGR and DMC can simultaneously reduce smoke and nitric oxide (NOx) emission. The NOx emission was reduced by about 17.68% for 10% of EGR introduction and about 13.55% increase in smoke emission. When dimethyl carbonate was added with EGR, the engine emits lower smoke with lesser NOx emission, and it showed that the smoke reduction rate had a linear relationship with DMC percentage. The carbon monoxide (CO) and hydrocarbon (HC) emissions also decreased when DMC was added. However, the addition of DMC with EGR caused an increase in both BSEC and BTE.

Blends of Biodiesels Synthesized from Non-edible and Edible Oils: Effects on the Cold Filter Plugging Point

To minimize use of biodiesels synthesized from edible oils, such as palm oil, because of the raising food versus fuel issue, palm biodiesel (PBD) was blended in different weight ratios with biodiesels synthesized from tree-borne non-edible oil seeds, jatropha and pongamia, to examine the effects on the cold filter plugging point (CFPP) of PBD. The CFPP of PBD improved significantly after blending with jatropha biodiesel (JBD) and pongamia biodiesel (PoBD). The dependence of CFPP upon the esters of fatty acid composition was also examined. Good correlations between the CFPP and palmitic acid methyl ester (PAME) were obtained. A correlation between CFPP and total unsaturated fatty acid methyl ester (X) was also determined. Using these two correlations, the CFPP of different biodiesel blends can be determined.