Experimental Study on Performance of a Single-Cylinder Engine Fuelled With Diesel and Vegetable Oil-Diesel Blends

Abstract

Continuous demand for energy in order to provide to an ever-increasing global population calls for use of or integration of other alternative sources of fuel other than fossil fuels. Many countries all over the world use vegetable oils blended with neat diesel as alternative and using these biofuels can help alleviate lessen the emissions releases on the environment as well as the country’s dependency on fossil fuels. In the Philippines Coconut Methyl Ester (CME) is the primary vegetable oil used, however in this study we used four other vegetable oils which are RCO (Refined Corn Oil), RPO (Refine Palm Oil), JFO (Jahtropa Filtered Oil) and JME (Jathropa Methyl Ester) in order to investigate the possibility of their use in diesel engines. A 6.3 kW single-cylinder, four stroke cycle, direct injection engine was used for the study. This kind of engine is typically used in the Philippines for different purposes such as backup power for households, for boats, pumps and for agriculture use. The specific fuel consumption of the biodiesel blends compared to neat diesel fuel ranged from −15% to 15% with RCO and JME having higher SFC and JFO and RPO having lower SFC. Fuel conversion efficiency of the varied from −12% to 12% with JFO and RPO having higher efficiency and RCO and JME having lower efficiency. The power of the varied from −7% to 6% with RPO having lower power output, JFO having higher power output and JME and RCO having similar power output to neat diesel fuel. At full load condasition Neat Diesel Fuel blended with 15% Refined Palm Oil showed the greatest improvement in SFC while Neat Diesel Fuel blended with 10% Jathropa Filtered Oil showed the best power output.