Evaluation of Performance and Emission Characteristics of Thumba oil in a Compression Ignition Engine

Diesel engines are considered as a work horse in the transportation, agricultural and power sector. Stringent environmental norms coupled with extinction of fossil fuel have created interest in alternative fuels for leasing a new life to hundreds of thousands of existing diesel engines. In this context, oil derived from thumba plant has been considered as a sustainable substitute to diesel fuel. The objective of the present work is to evaluate performance and emission characteristics of a diesel engine fuelled with neat thumba oil and then to compare the results with baseline results of diesel. The experiments were conducted using a dual fuel engine test rig with the required instrumentation. The results show that BTE (brake thermal efficiency) of engine was lower and BSEC (brake specific energy consumption) was higher when the engine was fuelled with thumba oil as compared to diesel fuel. Emissions from thumba oil were comparable with that of diesel fuel. CO (carbon monoxide), HC (hydrocarbon) and smoke emissions from thumba oil were found to be slightly higher than diesel fuel. Thus, it can be concluded that thumba oil could be a good substitute of diesel fuel in rural areas of India where availability and high prices of diesel pose a challenge of utilising diesel either for electricity generation or for other farming applications.