Performance, Combustion and Emission Evaluation of Vegetable De-oiled Neem Cake-Diesel Blends on Diesel Engine

Abstract

Alternative sources for petroleum fuels have been the prime concern of most of the environmentalists. It is also a concern for economists due to the depletable nature of the fossil fuel. Vegetable oils are considered as good alternatives to diesel as their properties are close to diesel. At present biodiesel is commercially produced from the vegetable oils by esterification processes and its cost restrict the uses. In this paper neem de-oiled cakes after crushing the seeds is aimed in this study. The fuel is prepared by just adding dry de oiled cake powder at various proportions with diesel. Experiments were carried out in a single cylinder, water cooled, four stroke diesel engine for various blends of neem de oiled cake powder (NDOCP) and diesel fuel as 5%, 10% 15 % 20% and 25% by weight. The fuel has the potential to reduce smoke, CO emissions simultaneously with 2.5% increase in efficiency and a small increase in HC and NOx emission. The experimental results show that NDOCP blend operation results in higher brake thermal efficiency with reduced emissions compared to the neat diesel and slightly less when comparing with pure oil blends