Experimental Investigation on the Performance and Emission Characteristics of a Direct Injection Diesel Engine Using Blends of Ethyl Ester of Jatropha Oil and Ethanol

The need of Diesel as fuel has greatly pressurized the now scarcely available natural resources and is likely to become a luxury for the future generations. This paper aims at finding an alternate for diesel that can hopefully reduce the pressure on its existing demand. This paper presents a comparative study on use of different blends of Jatropha Oil (J) and Ethanol (E) as fuel in a diesel engine to observe its performance and emission characteristics. The findings are later compared with corresponding values of neat Diesel as fuel. Since Jatropha oil is more viscous and has polyunsaturated characteristics in its natural form, its ethyl ester was produced by transesterification process and later blended with Ethanol in different proportions like 90% J 10%E, 80J-20E, 70J-30E and 60J-40E. A Kirloskar make single cylinder Diesel engine coupled with Eddy Current dynamometer was used at a constant speed of 1500 RPM as a test bed to measure the performance characteristics of the blends at various loads of 0, 3, 6, 9 kg. A Crypton make five gas analyzer was used to analyze the Emission characteristics. A specific combination of Jatropha oil and Ethanol showed improvements in Volumetric efficiency, Mechanical efficiency and Thermal efficiency when compared to neat diesel. Also, the same blend showed less emission of NOx and CO compared to neat diesel. The findings and the recommended blend were discussed in detail in this paper. It could be concluded that this blend can be used as an alternate fuel in Diesel engines. Further, Parametric study of the engine and the investigation on effects of oil deposits in the engine may help to improve its performance.