An Experimental Study on Thermal Stability of Biodiesel Fuel

Biodiesel fuel, as renewable energy, has been used in conventional diesel engines in pure form or as biodiesel/diesel blends for many years. However, thermal stability of biodiesel and biodiesel/diesel blends has been minimally explored. Aimed to shorten this gap, thermal stability of biodiesel is investigated at high temperatures. In this study, batch thermal stressing experiments of biodiesel fuel were performed in stainless steel coils at specific temperature and residence time range from 250 to 425 °C and 3 to 63 minutes, respectively. Evidence of different pathways of biodiesel fuel degradation is demonstrated chromatographically. It was found that biodiesel was stable at 275 °C for a residence time of 8 minutes or below, but the cis-trans isomerization reaction was observed at 28 minutes. Along with isomerization, polymerization also took place at 300 °C at 63 minutes. Small molecular weight products were detected at 350 °C at 33 minutes resulting from pyrolysis reactions and at 360 °C for 33 minutes or above, gaseous products were produced. The formed isomers and dimers were not stable, further decomposition of these compounds was observed at hig