Combustion, performance and emission analysis of preheated KOME biodiesel as an alternate fuel for a diesel engine

In the present work, karanja oil methyl ester (KOME) biodiesel is used in a compression ignition engine to find an alternative to diesel. The use of biodiesel in a CI engine leads to poor performance and high brake specific fuel consumption due to the higher viscosity and lower calorific value of biodiesel. This problem can be reduced by increasing the injection temperature of biodiesel or its blends to a certain temperature. In this study, working fuel is tested at preheating temperatures of 95 degrees C for various loading conditions (0, 25, 50, 75 and 100%). Effect of different KOME biodiesel-diesel blends (B0, B30, B50 and B100) on engine performance, combustion and emissions is studied at different loads. At higher temperature, the viscosity of the fuel decreases which leads to better combustion, improves the atomization as well as vaporization of fuel in a diesel engine, resulting in higher engine performance and lower emissions of CO and HC, with slight increment in NO(X)and CO(2)emission compared to unheated neat diesel and biodiesel blends. The result shows that for 100% biodiesel (B100) at full load, BTE is improved by 9.1% compared to unheated case. Preheating of B100 fuel upto 95 degrees C at full load decreases the BSFC, CO and HC emission by 6.5%, 8.1% and 10.6%, respectively, compared to unheated case.