Vegetable oils are produced from numerous oil seed crops. While all vegetable oils have high-energy content, most require some processing to assure safe use in internal combustion engines. Some of these oils already have been evaluated as substitutes for diesel fuels. With the exception of rape seed oil which is the principal raw material for biodiesel fatty acid methyl esters, sunflower oil, corn oil and olive oil, which are abundant in Southern Europe, along with some wastes, such as used frying oils, appear to be attractive candidates for biodiesel production. In this paper, fuel consumption and exhaust emissions measurements from a single cylinder, stationary diesel engine are described. The engine was fueled with pure marine diesel fuel and blends containing two types of biodiesel, at proportions up to 50%. The two types of biodiesel appeared to have equal performance, and irrespective of the raw material used for their production, their addition to the marine diesel fuel improved the particulate matter, unburned hydrocarbons, nitrogen oxide and carbon monoxide emissions. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
