In-Cylinder Combustion and Emission Characteristics of an Agricultural Diesel Engine Fuelled with Blends of Diesel and Oxidatively Stabilized Calophyllum Methyl Ester 2016-28-0140

In the present experimental investigation, performance, emission and combustion characteristics of a single cylinder diesel engine using diesel-biodiesel blends and antioxidant containing biodiesel test fuels was carried out. The potential suitability of aromatic amine based antioxidants to enhance the oxidation stability of biodiesel on one hand and reduction of tail pipe oxides of nitrogen (NO_x) on the other were evaluated. Tertiary Butyl Hydroquinone (TBHQ) was considered as the antioxidant and Calophyllum Inophyllum vegetable oil was taken as the feedstock for biodiesel production. The test fuel samples were neat diesel (D100), 10% and 20% blend of Calophyllum biodiesel with diesel (CB10 and CB20) and 1500 ppm of TBHQ in CB10 and CB20 (CBT10 and CBT20). The results indicated that neat biodiesel blended test fuels (CB10 and CB20) exhibited lower brake thermal efficiency compared to the diesel baseline by a margin of 3% to 10% at full load. The full load carbon monoxide (CO) emission of D100 was highest and stood at 0.14%. CBT10 and CBT20 exhibited 0.11% and 0.13% by volume at full load CO emission as compared to 0.08% and 0.1% by volume exhibited by CB10 and CB20 respectively. Aromatic amine contacting test fuels (CBT10 & CBT20) indicated an encouraging reduction of 4.2% to 6.1% in full load NO_x emission compared to CB10 and CB20. It was observed that the full load heat release rate was highest for D100 that stood at 67.56 J/ºCA followed by 65.92 J/ºCA, 57.69 J/ºCA, 56.92 J/ºCA and 53.56 J/ºCA exhibited by CB10, CB20, CBT10 and CBT20 test fuels respectively.