EMISSIONS AND PERFORMANCE STUDY WITH SUNFLOWER METHYL ESTER AS DIESEL ENGINE FUEL

There is a need for innovative thinking to stabilize the fuel consumption pattern as well as depletion rate of crude oil and natural gas resources. Also, there are concerns ranging from environmental degradation as a result of tremendous noxious tail pipe emissions (CO, SOx, NOx, HC, SPM, aromatic compounds etc) to global warming due to emission of GHG (i.e. CO2) from petrol & diesel driven vehicles. Thus there are strong incentives to adopt renewable energy in the form of biofuels-alcohols and biodiesels both, in transport sector in the service of the nation. In this research study ‘Methyl ester of Sunflower oil ’ which is also popularly known as biodiesel, was prepared by employing transesterification of sunflower vegetable oil with methanol and catalyst KOH. Various blends of Sunflower methyl ester (SFME) were tested in 4-S, C.I. engine and engine performance results obtained were compared with data obtained from pure diesel (HSD). Study reported 1.5 to 4 % increase in brake thermal efficiency (BTE) with SFME blends. The brake power (BP) values were comparable to those obtained from HSD. With biodiesel blends, significant reduction in emissions of hydrocarbons as well as smoke / (particulates) was noticed. NOx emissions with SFME blends were observed to be somewhat higher as compared to diesel. Since biodiesel is sulphur free fuel, no SOx emissions were produced