1Department of Mechanical Engineering, Priyadarshini Engineering College, Vaniyambadi-635751, Tamilnadu, India
2Department of Mechanical Engineering, Coimbatore Institute of Technology, Coimbatore, Tamilnadu, India
3School of Biotechnology, Chemical and Biomedical Engineering, VIT University, Vellore-632014, Tamilnadu, India
The recent energy trend makes an opportunity to look for substitutes of fossil fuels for both economic and environmental benefits. Vegetable-oil-based fuels (Bio-fuels) have been considered to be good alternatives to fossil fuels for diesel engines. Bio-fuel commands crucial advantages such as technical feasibility of blending, superiority from the environment and emission reduction angle, its capacity to provide energy security to remote and rural areas and employment generation. This paper presents the results of performance and emission analyses carried out in an unmodified diesel engine fueled with palm oil methyl ester (POME) blends with diesel. Engine tests have been conducted to get the comparative measures of brake thermal efficiency, specific fuel consumption and emissions such as CO, HC, NOx to evaluate the behavior of POME and diesel in varying proportions. The results reveal that blends of POME with diesel up to 30% by volume (B30) provide better engine performance and improved emission characteristics. With respect to the combustion characteristics it was found that the biofuels have lower ignition delay than diesel. The heat release rate was very high for diesel than for the biofuel.
Palm oil, bio-diesel, diesel engine, methyl esters
