Performance and emissions of an agricultural diesel engine fuelled with different diesel and methyl ester blends

This paper shows the results of an investigation carried out to assess the application of different fuels produced by blending diesel fuel with methyl ester obtained from mixture of 75% (v/v) sunflower oil and 25% (v/v) used cooking oil on a Kubota agricultural indirect injection diesel engine, natural aspirated, and with a rated horsepower of 19.7 kW. Seven fuels, namely diesel fuel; 90:10, 80:20, 70:30, 50:50, 25:75 and 0:100 (%v/v) blends were prepared and tested for the performance of the diesel engine in accordance with the standardised OECD test code 2. The test results showed that the performance of the engine was satisfactory without a significant reduction in power output and torque with blends smaller than 50%. Fuel consumptions with biodiesel were higher than that when fuelled with diesel but differences were not very marked up to 30% blends. As the reduction of the engine thermal efficiency was less than the corresponding reduction in heating value of the different biodiesel blends, the latter resulted in a more complete combustion in comparison with diesel fuel. The oxides of nitrogen (NOx) emissions were found to be reduced as the biodiesel concentration increase, particularly with 70% and 100% blends. The emissions of carbon monoxide (CO) were lower and increased at a lower rate with the oxygen concentration of the exhaust as the biodiesel blends were equal or higher than 50%. Additional key words: biodiesel blends, engine emissions, engine performance, indirect injection diesel engine.