Performance characteristics and analysis of Jatropha oil in multi- cylinder turbocharge Compression Ignition Engine

– The rapidly depleting conventional petroleum resources have promoted research for alternative fuels for internal combustion engines. Among various possible options, fuels derived from triglycerides (vegetable oils/animal fats) present promising ‘‘greener’’ substitutes for fossil fuels. Vegetable oils, due to their agricultural origin, are able to reduce net CO2 emissions to the atmosphere along with import substitution of petroleum products. A variety of edible and non-edible oils are considered for bio-diesel production. In the present work, Jatropha Biodiesel purchased from authorized agencies, and their important physical & chemical properties were tested & compared. It is found that these properties are approximately similar to diesel fuel and suitable to use in diesel engine. Also petro-diesel is purchased from local authorized agency and used before and after the biodiesels for verifying the engine condition due to biodiesels. The biodiesel from jatropha oil is used in a M&M Turbo Charged make four stroke, four cylinders, and water cooled diesel engine in pure and blended form without any modification in engine design or fuel system. The performance characteristics of an engine are studied with different proportions of biodiesel and petro-diesel .The power, torque, and brake thermal efficiency using biodiesel are found higher at various load conditions than the petro-diesel; however specific fuel consumption is found slightly more. The biodiesel blend JBD20 have shown better performance than the diesel and other blends. Keywords––Jatropha, transesterification, Bio-diesel blend, JbD20, JBD30, JBD60