A STUDY ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF Mesua ferrea L. SEED OIL BASED MICROEMULSIFIED FUEL SYSTEM

To meet the raising energy demands vegetable oils were initially considered as transportation fuels owing to their performance which was similar to that of diesel fuel. Vegetable oil is a promising alternative because of its portability, ready availability, and renewability etc. However, long-term usage of vegetable oils in diesel engines causes engine durability problems due to its high viscosity. Out of the several methods for reduction of viscosity of vegetable oil, one of the major techniques is microemulsification. The technique of microemulsification has the advantages in terms of its simplicity, time saving, in-situ, energy conservative production technology over biodiesel and is therefore more economically viable. In this study a new microemulsified fuel system containing different volume percentages of vegetable oil extracted from Mesua ferrea L. seed, butan-2-ol and ethanol is tried to develop. Different parameters such as physical stability, density, dynamic and kinematic viscosity of the prepared system are investigated and compared with those of diesel and biodiesel. The experimental results of various fractions of the samples prepared show that the properties of the fuel systems meet the requirements for biodiesel or/and diesel fuel. Interestingly, the different characterization carried out for the samples prepared in this study show that the fuel properties of Mesua ferrea L. seed oil could be improved by microemulsification technique.

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