Real-Time Study of Noxious Gas Emissions and Combustion Efficiency of Blended Mixtures of Neem Biodiesel and Petrodiesel

Avin Pillay, Arman Molki, Mirella Elkadi, Johnson Manuel, Shrinivas Bojanampati, Mohammed Khan and Sasi Stephen
Additional contact information
Avin Pillay: Department of Chemistry, The Petroleum Institute, P.O. Box 2533, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates
Arman Molki: Department of Mechanical Engineering, The Petroleum Institute, P.O. Box 2533, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates
Mirella Elkadi: Department of Chemistry, The Petroleum Institute, P.O. Box 2533, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates
Johnson Manuel: Department of Chemistry, The Petroleum Institute, P.O. Box 2533, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates
Shrinivas Bojanampati: Department of Mechanical Engineering, The Petroleum Institute, P.O. Box 2533, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates
Mohammed Khan: Department of Chemistry, The Petroleum Institute, P.O. Box 2533, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates
Sasi Stephen: Department of Chemistry, The Petroleum Institute, P.O. Box 2533, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates

Sustainability, 2013, vol. 5, issue 5, 1-10

Abstract: Neem biodiesel is currently being explored as a future biofuel and was extracted chemically from the vegetable oil. Many of its properties are still under investigation and our aim was to study its noxious-gas emission profiles from blends with regular petroleum diesel. The distinct advantage of a real-time study is acquisition of in situ data on the combustion behavior of gas components with actual progression of time. Mixtures of neem biodiesel and petroleum diesel corresponding to neem additives of 5%, 10%, 15% and 25% were tested for combustion efficiency and emitted gases using a high-performance gas analyzer. Our study, therefore, investigated the overall efficiency of the combustion process linked to emissions of the following gases: O 2 , CO 2 , NO, NO x and SO 2 . The results for the 95/5% blend compared to the neat sample were most promising and showed no serious change in performance efficiency (<2%). NO/NO x emission trends displayed maxima/minima, suggestive of interconvertible chemical reactivity. Declining CO and SO 2 emissions were consistent with rapid chemical conversion. The CO and SO 2 concentrations fell well below the toxic atmospheric limits in less than 300 s. The results are generally encouraging for blends below 10%. The potential environmental impact of the study is discussed.

Keywords: neem biodiesel; gas emissions: O 2 , CO 2 , NO, NO x , SO 2; combustion efficiency (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/5/5/2098/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/5/5/2098/ (text/html)

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:gam:jsusta:v:5:y:2013:i:5:p:2098-2107:d:25569

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().