Comparison of Performance and Emission Characteristic of Tamanu, Mahua and Pongamia Biodiesel in a Di Diesel Engine

Random extraction and consumption of fossil fuels have leads to a reduction in petroleum reserves. As for as developing countries like India is connected the need to search for alternative fuels is most urgent as India is heavily dependent upon the import of petroleum to meet its demands for automotive and power sectors. This has inspired curiously in alternative sources for petroleum based fuels. An alternative fuel must be economically competitive and environmentally acceptable. India has great potential for production of biofuels like Biodiesel from vegetable seeds. In the quest to find an alternative to the existing diesel and petrol fuels various Biodiesel and alcohol has been tried and tested in the Internal Compression engine. In this direction, an attempt has been made to investigate the performance and emission characteristic of Biodiesels and compare it with diesel. The Biodiesels considered are Tamanu, Mahua and Pongamia were tested with four stroke diesel engine. A drastic improvement in reduction of Hydrocarbon (HC) and Carbon monoxide (CO) were found for Biodiesels at high engine loads. Smoke and Nitrogen oxides (NOx) were slightly higher for Biodiesels. Biodiesels exposed similar combustion stages to diesel fuel. Therefore use of transesterified vegetable oils can be partially substituted for the diesel fuel at most operating conditions in term of the performance parameters and emissions without any engine modification.