Emission, performance and combustion study on watermelon methyl ester in diesel engine

ABSTRACT

This work presents the feasibility of using watermelon methyl ester (WME) as an alternate for diesel blended fuel to evaluate the engine characteristics. Six blends of neat baseline diesel, a blend of diesel–biodiesel (20%, 40%, 60%, 80% and 100%), are prepared which are tested on a diesel engine. The experimental results revealed that the replacement of diesel by WME has shown a slight reduction in brake thermal efficiency with a slight increase in brake-specific fuel consumption. Furthermore, the WME addition to diesel reduced the unburned hydrocarbon, CO and NO_x. Critical analysis of combustion aspects was also carried out and it showed prolonged ignition delay during WME addition with diesel.

KEYWORDS:

• Watermelon methyl ester
• diesel engine
• combustion
• performance
• emissions

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.