A. Murugesan

Biodiesel from plant seed oils as an alternate fuel for compression ignition engines—a review

The modern scenario reveals that the world is facing energy crisis due to the dwindling sources of fossil fuels. Environment protection agencies are more concerned about the atmospheric pollution due to the burning of fossil fuels. Alternative fuel research is getting augmented because of the above reasons. Plant seed oils (vegetable oils) are cleaner, sustainable, and renewable. So, it can be the most suitable alternative fuel for compression ignition (CI) engines. This paper reviews the availability of different types of plant seed oils, several methods for production of biodiesel from vegetable oils, and its properties. The different types of oils considered in this review are cashew nut shell liquid (CNSL) oil, ginger oil, eucalyptus oil, rice bran oil, Calophyllum inophyllum, hazelnut oil, sesame oil, clove stem oil, sardine oil, honge oil, polanga oil, mahua oil, rubber seed oil, cotton seed oil, neem oil, jatropha oil, egunsi melon oil, shea butter, linseed oil, Mohr oil, sea lemon oil, pumpkin oil, tobacco seed oil, jojoba oil, and mustard oil. Several methods for production of biodiesel are transesterification, pre-treatment, pyrolysis, and water emulsion are discussed. The various fuel properties considered for review such as specific gravity, viscosity, calorific value, flash point, and fire point are presented. The review also portrays advantages, limitations, performance, and emission characteristics of engine using plant seed oil biodiesel are discussed. Finally, the modeling and optimization of engine for various biofuels with different input and output parameters using artificial neural network, response surface methodology, and Taguchi are included.

Quantitative and qualitative analysis of biodiesel – an in-depth study

This study is primarily focused on the gas chromatography (GC) and GC mass spectra (GC-MS) analysis method of analysing the quantitative and qualitative properties of biodiesel. Neat diesel, raw pungamia and neem oil, methyl esters of pungamia (MEOP), ethyl esters of pungamia (EEOP), ethyl esters of neem (EEON) and methyl esters of neem (MEON) were the test fuels used in the study. GC analysis showed that methyl/ethyl esters contain a higher percentage of saturated fatty acids, with a lower percentage of unsaturated fatty acids, which clearly proved that the prepared esters have a very good fuel property. GC-MS results have also proved that methyl/ethyl esters are of high purity.

Performance, emissions and combustion characteristics of CI engine fuel with watermelon (Citrullus vulgaris) methyl esters

ABSTRACT In this paper, bio-diesel was prepared from watermelon seed oil by using transesterification processes. The performance, emission and combustion characteristics of the various bio-diesel and diesel blends (B20–B80 and B100) are compared with those of the diesel. The experimental result indicates that owing to a lower heating value of bio-diesel, the brake-specific fuel consumption increased and the brake thermal efficiency decreased. However, bio-diesel and its blends reduced carbon monoxide and hydrocarbon, while the oxides of nitrogen and smoke slightly increased. The combustion analysis proved that increasing bio-diesel blend ratio decreases the cylinder pressure and heat release rate when compared with base diesel.

An empirical and statistical analysis of biodiesel production by transesterification process

Despite the fragile bio-fuel market of the present day, numerous research works are being carried out all over the globe to discover a viable alternate source to fossil fuels. In this regard, the present study enumerates the production of methyl esters of Pungamia oil by transesterification process. Also, the parameters influencing biodiesel production such as the stirrer speed, reaction time, and quantity of catalyst were studied and discussed. In this work, sodium methoxide (mixture of sodium hydroxide and methanol) and potassium methoxide (mixture of potassium hydroxide and methanol) gave good conversion yields and high quality of biodiesel during transesterification process. Also, the maximum ester content of biodiesel was witnessed for potassium hydroxide catalyst and the amount of catalyst used was less than that with sodium hydroxide for the same mass of the feedstock oil.

Optimization of biodiesel production from raw and purified bio-oil

ABSTRACT In this work, an endeavor has been made to study in detail the biodiesel production from raw and purified vegetable oil. For this purpose, ethyl and methyl esters of biodiesel have been prepared from raw and purified Pungamia oil. It was noted from the experimental results that the use of purified oil improved the biodiesel quality and significantly reduced the amount of catalyst and solvent required for biodiesel production than raw oil. The biodiesel yield of purified oil was also noted to be higher than raw oil. Furthermore, the higher biodiesel yield of around 95% was noted for ethyl esters of purified Pungamia oil than methyl esters.

Evaluation of bio-diesel properties: a statistical approach

ABSTRACT In this work, methyl esters of Pungamia (MEOP), ethyl esters of Pungamia (EEOP), and ethyl esters of Neem (EEON) were primarily produced by means of transesterification process using sodium methoxide (mixture of sodium hydroxide and methanol) and potassium methoxide (mixture of potassium hydroxide and methanol). Further, the fuel properties such as calorific value, flash point, density and viscosity of methyl and ethyl esters were determined using ASTM specified equipment. Also, the association between different blend ratios and fuel type with fuel properties was gauged with an assistance of two-way analysis of variance. The experimental outcomes revealed that the maximum ester content of bio-diesel was witnessed for potassium hydroxide catalyst and the quantity of catalyst used was less than that with sodium hydroxide for the same mass of the feedstock oil. Overall, the statistical analysis disclosed that there is a significant difference in the fuel properties of the different combination of fuel type and blend ratios.

Experimental investigation of a novel alcohol fumigation in a single-cylinder constant speed diesel engine

ABSTRACT Biofuels play an important role as alternate fuel in diesel engines. In this paper, alcohol fumigation on a constant speed single-cylinder diesel engine is experimentally investigated. Fumigation is a method by which volatile fuels are injected into the intake manifold. Previously carburation and injection arrangements have been used for fumigation. In this work, computer control injection using LabVIEW software is attempted for alcohol fumigation and common rail is used to inject at same pressure always. Ethanol and methanol at different rates are used as fumigation fuels. The performance and emission characteristics are studied with and without fumigation. Fumigation increases specific fuel consumption (SFC), carbon monoxide emission and hydrocarbon emission. Fumigation decreases brake thermal efficiency at low load, carbon dioxide and smoke. Fumigation increases SFC at medium and high load conditions. The results show that fumigation replaces diesel up to a certain percentage and reduces both nitrogen oxides and smoke.

Heating value of biodiesel: An empirical and theoretical exploration

ABSTRACT The heating value of a fuel affects both the brake thermal efficiency and combustion characteristics of an engine. Its value for fuel blend cannot be calculated based on the blend ratio even though the heating values of blend fuels are known. Therefore, a relationship was formulated from the experimental data to predict the heating values of fuel blends. This study was carried out to compute the theoretical heating values of raw as well as purified pungamia oil with different blend ratio by means of SPSS software (ver. 16). The Durbin–Watson (multiple regressions) tests were carried out in the present study to validate the experimental results. The values of density, flash point, viscosity, and percentage of blends were considered an independent variable, and the heating value was considered a dependent variable for the analysis of heating values of different pungamia oil blends with diesel. The theoretically calculated heating values and relationship between the independent variables were around ± 1%. Also, these values were compared with that of the experimental results of other researchers and the variation was only about 2%. Thus, the validations of developed relation with experimental results show good compliance.

Optimization of biodiesel produced from watermelon (Citrullus vulgaris) using batch-type production unit

ABSTRACT In the present work the production of a biodiesel from watermelon seed oil (Citrullus vulgaris) by methanol-induced transesterification using an alkaline catalyst (potassium hydroxide, KOH) has been examined. The influence of the operating variables such as agitation speed, temperature, reaction time, alcohol amount, and catalyst concentration was determined experimentally and found to be 550 rpm agitation rate, 60°C reaction temperature, 55 min reaction time, 20% of methanol, and 13 g of catalysts concentration for 2.5 liters of oil. The yield of biodiesel from the watermelon methyl ester (WME) under optimized conditions is found to be 91%. The properties of biodiesel are measured as per ASTM standards and compared with the base diesel.