Lyes Tarabet

Eucalyptus Biodiesel as an Alternative to Diesel Fuel: Preparation and Tests on DI Diesel Engine

Nowadays, the increasing oil consumption throughout the world induces crucial economical, security, and environmental problems. As a result, intensive researches are undertaken to find appropriate substitution to fossil fuels. In view of the large amount of eucalyptus trees present in arid areas, we focus in this study on the investigation of using eucalyptus biodiesel as fuel in diesel engine. Eucalyptus oil is converted by transesterification into biodiesel. Eucalyptus biodiesel characterization shows that the physicochemical properties are comparable to those of diesel fuel. In the second phase, a single cylinder air-cooled, DI diesel engine was used to test neat eucalyptus biodiesel and its blends with diesel fuel in various ratios (75, 50, and 25 by v%) at several engine loads. The engine combustion parameters such as peak pressure, rate of pressure rise, and heat release rate are determined. Performances and exhaust emissions are also evaluated at all operating conditions. Results show that neat eucalyptus biodiesel and its blends present significant improvements of carbon monoxide, unburned hydrocarbon, and particulates emissions especially at high loads with equivalent performances to those of diesel fuel. However, the NOx emissions are slightly increased when the biodiesel content is increased in the blend.

Numerical Investigation on DI Diesel Engine Running With Eucalyptus Biodiesel and its Blends

The aim of the present work is to investigate the possibility of using eucalyptus biodiesel and its blends with diesel fuel as an alternative fuel for diesel engines. Eucalyptus oil is converted to biodiesel with ethanol using sodium hydroxide as a catalyst. The characterization of the obtained biodiesel shows that the thermo-physical properties are in the range recommended by American Standard (ASTM D6751). Innovative biodiesel development tests on the diesel engine require a lot of time and efforts. Here, mathematical model, which is based on the thermodynamic single zone model, is developed to analyze the combustion characteristics such as cylinder pressure and the performance characteristics such as brake power, brake thermal efficiency and specific fuel consumption of a DI diesel engine.Copyright

Biodiesel Production from Nonedible Oil Using Heterogeneous Solid Base Catalysts

Biodiesel is a clean-burning and renewable substitute for conventional diesel. It is produced particularly from vegetable oils. It’s nontoxic and biodegradable, and it can also be used in most diesel equipments with no or only minor modifications. In this study we focused our work on the elaboration of heterogeneous solid base catalysts (KF/MgO and KF/CaO). The catalysts are characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) surface area. The heterogeneous base-catalyzed transesterification is applied for producing a biodiesel starting from a nonedible and abundant vegetable source in the Mediterranean Basin such as Pistacia lentiscus (PL). The catalysts are compared in terms of activities in the transesterification process under suitable conditions (reaction temperature of 50 °C, methanol to oil molar ratio of 12:1, catalyst loading of 1 wt.%, and reaction time of 2 h). For the two catalysts, a higher than 90% conversion was found.