Performance, emission and combustion characteristics of safflower, neem and corn biodiesels fuelled in a CI engine

Renewable fuels are desirable as alternate fuels with ignition quality equivalent to diesel and its combustion parameters, but unsuitable for direct operation in diesel engines as fuel because of their higher viscosity. Hence, fuel and engine-based modifications are being developed to improve the performance, emission and combustion behaviour of the compression ignition engines. The higher viscosity of fuel oil does not let it vaporize even after it is being injected into the combustion chamber. Therefore, converting the higher viscosity of vegetable oil into biodiesel improves the atomization resulting in better combustion. Issues related to the use of biodiesel as working fuel are its oxidation stability and performance. In this study, safflower oil, neem oil and corn oil are used as fuel oils. The experimental results displayed a significant increase in the brake thermal efficiency of 28.25% for corn oil methyl ester (COME). HC and CO emissions are lower with corn oil methyl ester. At full load, the smoke emission reduces slightly with corn oil methyl ester about 58% opacity respectively, but it is still lower than diesel having 66.2% opacity. © 2019 Technoscience Publications. All rights reserved.