Experimental Investigation on Performance, Emission and Combustion Characteristics of Single Cylinder Diesel Engine Running on Fish Oil Biodiesel

Continuous rise in the conventional fuel prices and shortage of its supply have increased the interest in the field of the alternative sources for petroleum fuels. In this present work, experimentation was carried out to study the performance, emission and combustion characteristics of desert date biodiesel and its blends. For this experiment a single cylinder, four strokes, naturally aspired, direct injection, water cooled, eddy current dynamometer Kirloskar diesel engine at 1500 rpm for variable loads. Initially, desert date biodiesel and its blends were chosen. The physical and chemical properties of desert date biodiesel were determined. The tests were carried out over entire range of engine operation at varying conditions of load. The engine performance parameters studied were brake horse power, brake specific fuel consumption, brake thermal efficiency, exhaust temperature and mechanical efficiency. The emission characteristics studied are CO, HC, NOx and smoke opacity. These results are compared to those of pure diesel. These results are again compared to the other results of neat oils available in the literature for validation. By analyzing the graphs, it was observed that performance characteristics are reduced and emission characteristics are lowered compare to the diesel. This is mainly due to lower calorific value, higher viscosity and delayed combustion process. From the analysis of graphs it is observed that B10 and B20 blends are best suited for diesel engine. The present experimental results show that fish oil biodiesel and its blends can be used as an alternative fuel in diesel engine.