Tamanu oil - an alternative fuel for variable compression ratio engine

Biodiesel can be produced from vegetable oils and also from waste fats. Biodiesel is a mono-alkyl-ester of long chain fatty acids derived from renewable feedstock such as vegetable oils by transesterification process. The esterified cotton seed oil, pungam oil, rice bran oil, and tamanu oil are chosen as the alternative fuels. Among these oils, tamanu oil is considered for the first time as an alternative fuel. An experiment is conducted to obtain the operating characteristics of the variable compression ratio (VCR) engine run by chosen esterified oils, and the results are compared with esterified tamanu oil. From the comparison of results, it is inferred that the engine performance is improved with significant reduction in emissions for the chosen oils without any engine modification. The effective compression ratio can be fixed based on the experimental results obtained in the engine since the findings of the present research work infer that the biodiesel obtained from tamanu oil is a promising alternative fuel for direct-injection four-stroke VCR engine. © 2012 raj and kandasamy; licensee Springer.