Experimental Investigation on a Single Cylinder Diesel Engine Using Karanja Biodiesel with Diethyl Ether Additive

Due to the increasing awareness of the depletion of fossil fuel resources and environmental issues, biodiesel became more and more attractive in the recent years. Biodiesel has become a key source as a substitution fuel for future. In this study the karanja oil was extracted from karanja seeds by mechanical expeller and karanja oil was transesterified with methanol using Sodium Hydroxide as a Catalyst to obtain karanja Biodiesel (karanja oil methyl Ester). A four stroke single cylinder water cooled constant speed diesel engine with different load conditions is used for the performance and emission characteristics of karanja biodiesel and diethyl ether blends with diesel for injection pressure of 200 bar and injection timing of 23°bTDC maintained constant throughout the experiment. Diesel and karanja biodiesel- diethyl ether blends (K5D5, K10D5, K15D5, K20D5, K90D10) are used for the experiment of performance and emission characteristics at various engine loads. The variations of all engine performance parameters and exhaust emissions were plotted with respect to Brake Power. Among the blends K10D5 (Karanja biodiesel 10% + Diesel 85% + diethyl ether 5%) shows better performance with Brake Thermal Efficiency and Brake specific fuel consumption. Among the blends K90D10 shows higher HC emission of 92ppm at 50% load. The K15D5, K20D5 shows lower CO emissions at no load and 75% load when compared to diesel. In case of NOX emissions K15D5 has lesserNOX emissions of 28, 572, 828, 967ppm at 0%, 25%, 50%, and 75% load as compared to diesel fuel respectively.