Experimental Investigation on Performance and Emission Characteristics of a Common Rail Direct Injection Engine Using Animal Fat Biodiesel Blends

Our society is highly dependent on petroleum for its activities. However, petroleum is a finite source and causes several environmental problems such as rising carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere. About 90% of petroleum produced is used as an energy source for transportation, heat and electricity generation, and the remaining sources used as feed stocks in the chemical industry. As demands for energy is increasing and fossil fuels are limited, research is directed towards alternate renewable fuels. Alternate fuels for compression ignition (CI) engines have become the need of the hour due to rapid depletion and predicted scarcity of conventional petroleum resources. Biodiesel is becoming a common propulsion fuel. Various countries around the world blend it to mineral diesel, usually in low percentages. Large scale biodiesel production by using low cost and abundant feedstock of waste animal fat is becoming more important. Experiments were carried out with different blends of biodiesel from animal fat mixed with mineral diesel in the concentrations of 10%, 20%, 30%, 40% and 50% to examine the effect of emissions and performance of a CRDI engine. The collected data were analysed for various parameters such as, brake specific fuel consumption (BSFC), thermal efficiency, CO, CO2, NOX, O-2 and HC emissions. Of all the animal fat biodiesel blends, the 30% blend concentrations were found to be at par with mineral diesel, regarding the performance and emission parameters of the CRDI engine. These were, however, observed to be marginally inferior for higher and lower blend concentrations. (C) 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.