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Microsoft Word - Dissertation

The document discusses issues with using straight vegetable oils as fuel in diesel engines, including high viscosity and incomplete combustion leading to power loss and carbon deposits. It suggests blending vegetable oils with diesel as a potential solution. The purpose of the study is to determine the optimal blend of vegetable oil and diesel for engine performance and low emissions, and to identify the most suitable type of vegetable oil.

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124 views3 pages

Microsoft Word - Dissertation

The document discusses issues with using straight vegetable oils as fuel in diesel engines, including high viscosity and incomplete combustion leading to power loss and carbon deposits. It suggests blending vegetable oils with diesel as a potential solution. The purpose of the study is to determine the optimal blend of vegetable oil and diesel for engine performance and low emissions, and to identify the most suitable type of vegetable oil.

Uploaded by

Ravindra_1202
Copyright
© Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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com
CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION
In the face of escalating oil prices and depleting oil reserves, the search for alternative sources of fuels has been intensified more than ever before in the history of mankind. A side energy security concern, issues of climate change as a result of the emission of carbon dioxide (CO2) and carbon monoxide (CO) and other harmful compounds associated with the use of fossil fuel have also been one of the driving forces in the search for alternative sources which are environmentally friendly and sustainable. The idea of using vegetable oils instead of fossil diesel fuels has resurfaced as a way to minimize the net carbon footprint left by emissions from compression ignition (CI) engines. Straight vegetable oils (SVOs) have their fair share of problems in unmodified CI engines. These problems include: cold-weather starting; plugging and gumming of filters lines, and injectors; engine knocking; choking of injectors on piston and head of engine; carbon deposits on piston and head of engine; excessive engine wear; and deterioration of engine lubricating oil. Vegetable oils decrease power output and thermal efficiency while leaving carbon deposits inside the cylinder. Most of these problems with vegetable oil are due to high viscosity, low cetane number, high flash point, and resulting incomplete combustion. The use of vegetable oil in diesel engines dates back to 1892 when Rudolf Diesel demonstrated his new invention (diesel engine) using peanut (groundnut) oil as the fuel. Aside economies of scale which favoured petroleum derived fuels subsequently, other factors have also hampered the use of vegetable oils in diesel engines. Of great concern are the relatively high viscosities and the low volatilities of most of the vegetable oils and carbon deposits on the piston during the

running of the engine. All these factors have been observed to have a negative impact on the performance of the engine. A possible remedy proposed by many authors are the blending of the vegetable oil and diesel in some proportions. This is expected to cut down on cost, improve the fuel properties to make it suitable for use in engines and also reduce the quantity of greenhouse gases being emitted into the atmosphere. The other possible remedy is to modify car engines to run purely on B100 (100% vegetable oil). This could be expensive but one that may provide a long-term solution barring any conflict with food production.

Biodiesels are derived from vegetable oils or animal fats, more specifically the alkyl esters from these. The esters from vegetable oils are considered to be superior since they have a higher energetic yield and essentially no engine modifications are necessary for their use. Biodiesels have been traced back to the mid-1800s, where transesterification was used to make soap and the alkyl esters (biodiesels) were just considered by products. Early feed stocks were corn, peanut, hemp oils, and tallow. For the past decade, there has been increased interest in using biodiesels instead of fossil diesel in CI engines. The use of biodiesel was not economically feasible until recently due to rise in prices of fossil fuels. There is a significant amount of research being conducted to lower the cost of producing biodiesel as well as to increase its performance in CI engines. In the interim the most economically wise decision will be to blend the vegetable oil with diesel. However before that can be done a couple of questions must be answered:

1. What blend of vegetable oil and diesel will give optimum performance of the engine with less emissions? 2. Which type of vegetable oil is most suitable in replacing diesel in vehicles?
This study will attempt to address these questions through the design and execution of experiments in the laboratory.

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