Comparative Study on Performance and Emission Characteristics of Fish Oil Biodiesel and Mahua Oil Biodiesel Blend with Diesel in a Compression Ignition Engine

The commercial sources of energy such as fossil fuels and petroleum products are extensively used. These sources are finite and cause large scale degradation of environment. The increased pollution in urban areas is already causing serious sociological, ecological and economic implications. Diesel engines produce high torque at low rpm as compared to spark ignition engines due to which they are used in industrial, agricultural and transportation sector. Diesel fuel has higher HC, CO and PM emissions in comparison to biodiesel. This has drawn the attention of world towards the usage of biodiesel as an alternative fuel. Biodiesel has an advantage over diesel fuel because of its biodegradable and less toxic nature and superior lubrication properties. However, NOx emissions are compounded in case of biodiesel in CI engine. There has been concerns that biodiesel feedstock may compete with food supply in the long term. Therefore, the recent paper focuses on use of two non-edible oils Mahua oil and fish oil (processed from waste produced by fish). The acid number of Fish oil was found to be lower than Mahua oil. Hence, the base catalysed transesterification process was employed for production of Fish oil methyl ester. On the other hand, Mahua oil due to its higher free fatty acid content was esterified first and then, transesterified. The present study focuses on evaluation of performance and emission characteristics of a medium capacity single cylinder and air cooled diesel engine on blends of fish oil biodiesel and Mahua oil biodiesel with diesel in volumetric ratio of 20:80 to get biodiesel blend fuel B20. The brake thermal efficiency of Fish oil methyl ester blend was found to be higher than Mahua oil methyl ester.