Experimental studies on performance, combustion, and emission characteristics of diesel engine powered with subabul seed biodiesel blends

ABSTRACT

The increasing demand for fuel is due to industrialisation, transportation, and agricultural applications. The present research work exploits the potentiality of subabul seed biodiesel as a viable solution for diesel engine applications. Subabul crude oil was extracted from the subabul seeds through a mechanical pressing process. The transesterification technique was used to produce the subabul seed methyl ester (SSME). Different blends were prepared from subabul biodiesel such as SSME 10, SSME 20 and SSME 30 on a volume basis. It is found that SSME 20 was shown 3.26% higher BTE than SSME 10 at full load. Further, exhaust emissions like CO, HC and smoke were reduced drastically by 23.41%, 10.52% and 11.76% respectively at full load when compared to diesel. However, NOx emissions are 17% higher for the SSME20 than diesel. Further, Combustion characteristics of SSME20 such as HRR (72.68 J/ ˚CA), CP (71.94 bar) and ID (19˚) are closely competing with the diesel fuel.

KEYWORDS:

• Subabul seed methyl ester
• transesterification process
• biodiesel
• diesel engine
• emissions

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).