Optimisation of Karanja/Jatropha-Methanol emulsification variables and their engine evaluation

Avinash Kumar Agarwal, Vikas Katiyar and Kushagra Singh

Renewable Energy, 2016, vol. 96, issue PA, 433-441

Abstract: Vegetable oil based emulsified fuels have emerged as an attractive option for existing diesel engines. The issues such as higher viscosity and exhaust emissions such as oxides of nitrogen (NOX), particulate matter (PM) are associated with straight vegetables oils (SVO), which can be potentially eliminated by making SVO emulsions, without worrying about PM-NOx trade-off. In this study, emulsions were prepared, where methanol was used as a dispersed phase and SVOs (Jatropha and Karanja) were used as continuous phase. A non-ionic commercial surfactant ‘Sorbitan monooleate’ also known as ‘Span®80’ was added and the mixture was stirred by a mechanical stirrer to produce emulsified fuel. Effect of several process variables such as surfactant concentration, stirrer speed and stirring duration on emulsion stability were optimised. The optimum surfactant concentration, stirrer speed, and stirring duration were determined for Methanol-Jatropha/Karanja emulsions. Emulsified fuels had important fuel properties comparable to baseline mineral diesel. These emulsions were blended with diesel in 1:3 proportions and evaluated in a single cylinder diesel engine for their performance and emissions characteristics. Performance and emission characteristics of emulsified blends followed a trend, which was related to methanol concentration in the dispersed phase of the emulsions.

Keywords: Emulsified fuels; Performance; Emissions; Methanol; Jatropha; Karanja (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960148116303949
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:renene:v:96:y:2016:i:pa:p:433-441

DOI: 10.1016/j.renene.2016.04.092

Access Statistics for this article

Renewable Energy is currently edited by Soteris A. Kalogirou and Paul Christodoulides

More articles in Renewable Energy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().