Biodisiel as Alternative Fuel

Biodisiel as Alternative Fuel

ABSTRACT

Considering current production capacity and consumption rate, it is obvious that fossils fuel will not lost for many years. Use of vegetable oils may be the better solution for this problem. The major problem associated with use of vegetable oils is its high viscosity .In the present investigation the high viscosity of the jatropha curcas oil which has been considered as optional alternative fuel for the compression ignition (C.I.) engine was decreased by blending esterified jatropha oil and diesel were prepared, analyzed and compared with diesel fuel. The performance of the engine using blends and esterified jatropha oil was evaluated in a single cylinder C.I. engine and compared with the performance obtained with diesels. The specific fuel consumption and the exhaust gas temperature was reduced due to decease in viscosity of the vegetable oil. Acceptable thermal efficiencies of engine were obtained with blends containing up to 50% volume of esterfied jatropha oil from the properties and engine test results. It has been established that 40-50% of esterfied jatropha oil can be substituted for diesel without any engine modification and preheating of blends.


INTRODUCTION

As early as 1911, Rudolf Diesel, who invented the diesel engine, made the following statement in his letter “It is generally forgotten that vegetable and animal oils can be used for diesel engines”Due to gradual depletion of world petroleum reserves and the impact of environmental pollution of increasing exhaust emissions, there is an urgent need for suitable alternative fuels for use in diesel engines. Also the land degradation has become major threat to world food security with about 2000 millions ha of soil, equivalent to 15 per cent of the Earth’s land area have been degraded through human activities. The UNEP lists the causes of soil degradation as overgrazing (35 %), deforestation (30 %), and agricultural activities (27 %), over exploitation of vegetation (7 %), and industrial activities (1 %). A total of 305 million ha of soils ranged between ‘strongly degraded’ (296 million ha) and ‘extremely degraded’ (9 million ha, of which more than 5 million ha were in Africa). ‘Extremely degraded’ soils are beyond restoration. In the more severely affected regions, land degradation threatens the economic and physical survival of human population.

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