DefinePK

Abstract

The high energy demand in the industrial world as well as in the domestic sector and pollution problems caused due to the widespread use of fossil fuels make it increasingly necessary to develop the renewable energy sources with lesser environmental impact than the conventional one. This has inspired curiosity in alternative sources for petroleum-based fuels. One possible alternative to fossil fuel is the use of oils of plant origin like vegetable oils/tree borne oils. A wide variety of tree borne oils and their suitability as alternate fuel had been investigated. In this paper, an attempt has been made to investigate the effect of compression ratio on performance and emission characteristics of 20% methyl ester of Thevetia Peruviana Seed Oil (TPSO) blended with 80% diesel (B20) when used as fuel in a diesel engine. Experiments were conducted in a Variable Compression Ratio (VCR) diesel engine with different compression ratios and base line experiment was also conducted with neat diesel operation at higher compression ratio for comparison. The various performance and emission parameters like., brake thermal efficiency, specific fuel consumption, the exhaust gas temperatures CO, CO₂, HC, NO_x, and smoke intensity were measured and analyzed. It was found that performance of the engine increased appreciably with less bsfc by increasing the compression ratio for biofuel blend. Also, it was observed that increase in compression ratio significantly reduced the CO, HC, NO_x and smoke emissions but with a slight increase in CO₂.