Performance and Emission Characteristics of a DI Compression Ignition Engine Operated on Marine Fish- Oil Biodiesel

The high viscosity of vegetable oils leads to problem in pumping and spray characteristics. Biodiesel is recognized as a clean alternative fuel or as a fuel additive to reduce pollutant emissions from combustion equipment. Because cultivated land is too limited to grow seed- oil plants sufficient to produce both food and biodiesel, non-landbased oleaginous materials have been considered important sources for the production of the latter. In this study, fish-oil biodiesel blends are used as fuel. Marine fish oil was extracted from the discarded parts of mixed marine fish and refined. The refined marine fish oil was then transesterified with methyl alcohol to produce biodiesel, which was used thereafter as engine fuel to investigate its engine performance and emission characteristics. This paper presents the results of investigations carried out on a single-cylinder, four stroke, direct-injection, CI engine operated with methyl ester of fish-oil. The volumetric blending ratios of biodiesel with conventional diesel fuel were set at 0, 10, 20, 40, 60, 80, and 100. Engine performance (brake specific fuel consumption, brake specific energy consumption, thermal efficiency and exhaust gas temperature) and emissions (CO, HC and NOx) were measured. The maximum thermal efficiency for B20 (32.28%) was higher than that of diesel at rated load. The experimental results show that the engine performance are close to the values obtained from diesel fuel and the amount of exhaust emissions are lower than those of diesel fuel.