Performance and Emissions Characteristics of a Naturally Aspirated Diesel Engine with Esterified Vegetable Oil

Vegetable oil as a biomass-based energy, can be considered as possible alternative fuel. Neat Vegetable oil is too viscous, has poor volatility, comparatively low cetane number and having different chemical structures than diesel fuel. In DI diesel engine, these fuels can not be used without further processing. Modified or vegetable oils processed by esterification can mitigate these problems and become more suitable for diesel engine application. The present experimental study reports the performance and exhaust emissions of a DI diesel engine by using methyl esters karanji oil and heated karanji oil in comparison to 100% diesel operation. The influence of injection pressures and injection timings have also been reported. The data brake specific fuel consumption and brake thermal efficiency generated using esterified karanji oil and diesel are comparable. The maximum variation of the emission CO for esterified karanji oil is about 35% higher than that of diesel. Though CO emission is on the higher side, but considering good engine performance and economy, in the rural area (less polluted) having abandunt availability of karanji oil, which can be a very good substitute for diesel to run diesel engines as prime mover for irrigation purposes.