Characterization of Jatropha Oil and its Biodiesel

Abstract

The ever-increasing demand in consumption of fossil fuel strongly contradicted by its depletion in reserves coupled with the Green House Gas effect associated with the combustion of hydrocarbon has opened a channel for the inevitable desire for an environmentally friendly and a renewable source of energy like bio-fuel. Oil extracted from Jatropha curcas, a non edible plant looks good to be one of the solutions of the problems associated with energy consumption in recent time. Dried Jatropha seeds were shelled and oven-dried and weighed for every 30 minutes until a constant weight was obtained indicating that moisture had been taken care of 300 g of milled Jatropha was soaked in 2000 cm 3 of petroleum ether and covered for 48 hours to avoid vaporization. Whatman No 1 filter paper was used in filtering just as filtrate was concentrated at 60 ° C by using water bath. A constant volume of 241 ml was obtained and subsequently characterized. The specific gravity of the oil was calculated to be 0.9, its refractive index stood at 1.47. The specific heat capacity is 2.353 Jkg -1 K -1 while its viscosity was found to be 28.43 cSt at 32 °C. The fossil diesel engine can operate smoothly with some blend of Jatropha oil even up to 50% with diesel.