Performance and emission characteristics of twin cylinder diesel engine fueled with mahua biodiesel and DEE

An experimental investigation has been carried out to evaluate the performance, combustion, and emission characteristics of a twin-cylinder diesel engine fueled with mahua oil methyl ester (MOME)/diesel blends. The physicochemical properties of blended fuels were compared with baseline diesel as per the ASTM standard. Major challenges with mahua biodiesel are reduced thermal efficiency and a higher rate of oxides of Nitrogen (NOx) emissions hence to resolve this issue Di-ethyl ether (DEE) which has a higher cetane index, as well as lesser auto-ignition temperature, was mixed further with 20% mahua biodiesel/80% diesel blend(B-20) to improve the combustion characteristics of the blend. Initially, the engine was operated on the different blend proportion (5 to 20%) of mahua biodiesel mixed with neat diesel. The highest brake thermal efficiency was observed for AD-20(B-20+20%DEE) blend viz., around 30% at full load and 3% higher than neat diesel. Brake specific fuel consumption for the same blend was observed to be minimum viz., 12.16% reduction than neat diesel owing to improved ignition quality of the MOME blend causing complete combustion with the addition of DEE. Furthermore, the exhaust emissions such as smoke, NOx, unburnt hydrocarbon (UHC), and carbon monoxide (CO) were alleviated significantly by 55%, 7%, 35%, and 53%, respectively in comparison to normal diesel for AD-20 blend at maximum load. Hence, it can be concluded that MOME/diesel blend (B-20) mixed with 20% DEE gives the best result among all tested fuels. © 2020 The Author(s)