OPTIMIZATION OF AIR POLLUTANT EMISSIONS IN DIESEL ENGINES ACORN KERNEL OIL (QUERCUS FRAINETTO L.) BIODIESEL USING GREY-BASED TAGUCHI METHOD

Biodiesel is alternative renewable diesel engine fuels and their blend with diesel fuel No. 2 at different proportions can be used in diesel engines. The most important issues are to investigate input variables (factors) which affect the yield of biodiesel and their interactions on emissions of a diesel engine. In this study it was optimized process output or responses (engine power, brake specific fuel consumption (BSFC), carbon monoxide (CO), hydrocarbon (HC) and nitrogen oxide (NOx) a diesel engine which operates with acorn kernel oil biodiesel-diesel blends of 0%, 10%, 20% and 50% called as B0 (No. 2 diesel fuel), B10, B20 and B50 respectively and four engine speed, 1000, 1400, 1800 and 2200 rpm, were compared during full load tests. Optimal engine power and BSFC biodiesel blends on exhaust emissions were determined using grey- based Taguchi method. The set of experiments were conducted using the design of experiments suggested by Taguchi. Grey relational analysis was applied to the experimental data to convert the multi response problem into the single response problem. ANOVA was applied and both of biodiesel-diesel blends and engine speed were found as influencing factors. The optimal combination of biodiesel-diesel blends and engine speed was determined to be 50% and 2200 rpm respectively. Grey based Taguchi method revealed that choosing right blends rate is important factors in view of minimization of pollutant emissions and increase engine power, decreasing HC and CO