Renewable Energy 34 (2009) 343347

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Renewable Energy
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/renene

Technical Note

Utilization of unattended Putranjiva roxburghii non-edible oil as fuel in diesel engine

S.K. Haldar a, B.B. Ghosh b, A. Nag a, *
a b

Department of Chemistry, Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur 721302, West Bengal, India Department of Mechanical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur 721302, India

a r t i c l e i n f o
Article history: Received 17 March 2007 Accepted 3 March 2008 Available online 9 June 2008 Keywords: Alternative diesel Injection timing Non-edible oil Performance and emissions Putranjiva roxburghii oil Renewable source

a b s t r a c t
The search for alternative sources of energy has been driven by the increased cost and depletion of supply of fossil fuels. The alternatives are mainly vegetable oils. Putranjiva roxburghii, a non-edible vegetable oil can be used in diesel engine for its fuel properties which are comparable with diesel. Blends (10%, 20%, 30%, and 40% v/v) of pure Putranjiva oil and diesel are used in Ricardo Variable Compression Diesel Engine to study the performance and emission characteristics at various brake power. Putranjiva oil blends yield better performance at 45 CA bTDC injection timing in comparison to 40 CA bTDC timing for diesel. Maximum 30% blend of Putranjiva oil with diesel can be used as an alternative fuel in diesel engine for it differs very little from diesel in performance and is better than diesel with regard to emissions. 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction Increasing costs and demand for fossil fuels has led to an interest in vegetable oil as an alternative to diesel. There are a number of plants which produce oils which can be used in IC engines some of which are edible and others are not. Non-edible vegetable oils will be more economical than edible vegetable oils to use in IC engine. The non-edible vegetable plants can be grown easily in barren soil with less maintenance and low moisture. In recent years, systematic efforts have been made by several researchers for the compatibility of pure vegetable oils in diesel engine such as oils from Jatropha, Karanja, Soybean, Rapeseed, Sunower, Palm, etc. [18]. Pramanik [1] showed that 50% pure Jatropha curcas oil can be substituted for diesel to use in an IC engine without any major operational difculties with acceptable brake thermal efciencies and specic fuel consumption. Senthil et al. [2] experimented and concluded that ignition delay and combustion duration were increased with both Jatropha oil and its methyl ester as compared to diesel. The experiments by Nobukazu and Koichiro [3] showed improved brake thermal efciency and reduced exhaust emissions using a blend of pure vegetable oil and alcohol in engine. Rakopoulos et al. [4] found out high engine efciency and slightly higher BSFC in case of different vegetable oil blends than neat diesel tested

* Corresponding author. Tel.: 91 3222 281900; fax: 91 3222 255303. E-mail addresses: ahinnag@chem.iitkgp.ernet.in, ahinnag@hotmail.com (A. Nag). 0960-1481/$ see front matter 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.renene.2008.03.008

in a Ricardo diesel engine. They concluded that the smoke density, CO emission, HC were higher and NOx was lower in case of vegetable oil blends than neat diesel. Engelman et al. [6] used soybean oil and its blends with diesel as fuel in a diesel engine for 50 h testing and reported that vegetable oils could be used as fuel extender in low concentration without engine modications. Seddon [7] used different vegetable oils in dual fuel mode in diesel engine with great success. He remarked that vegetable oils could be used as alternative fuel in compression ignition engine vehicles under normal operating conditions. As per the literature survey, it is concluded that long-term use of pure vegetable oil and its blend with diesel in diesel engine may lead to premature engine failure due to carbon deposition in combustion chamber, fuel atomization difculty, oil ring sticking, thickening and gelling of fuel stock, lubricating oil contamination, wearing of piston, liner and bearing. These problems indicating that a fuel blend of low vegetable oil which must be highly ltered and chemically treated to improve the viscosity, combustion and ow properties are acceptable only for short-term use for engine durability. In recent years, researchers and automobile industries are trying to design various parts of engine components and the chemical processing of pure vegetable oils so that pure vegetable oils can be used 100% in engine without any major difculties. Elsbett family from Germany (engine manufacturer) has designed specially the piston/combustion chamber of a compression ignition engine to give excellent running by pure vegetable oils. Over 30 different types of vegetable oils have been used to operate CI engines since the 1900s [8]. Most of these oils are edible

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Nomenclature CA IC HC CO Crank angel Internal combustion Hydrocarbon Carbon monoxide

NOx bTDC BSFC

hbt
cSt CN

Nitrogen oxide Before top dead centre Brake specic fuel consumption Brake thermal efciency Centi Stokes Cetane number

and costlier than non-edible oils as they are also needed for human consumption. The main objective is to nd out the appropriate nonedible oils to run a diesel engine economically. Following a literature survey it has been decided to investigate Putranjiva oil as a possible fuel for use in a diesel engine, to discover its physical and chemical properties, its engine performance and emission characteristics using a Ricardo variable compression diesel engine. Putranjiva tree belongs to the family Euphorbiacae of order Geranials which was identied by Roxburgh and accordingly the plant is called as Putranjiva roxburghii. In the Tropic of Cancer, these plants are abundantly available. Million tons of seeds of Putranjiva oil go to waste annually which Villagers in remote areas can use pure Putranjiva, diesel oil blends to operate engines for running irrigation pumps, grinding mills or straw choppers for cattle feed for shorter duration at the time of fuel crisis or emergency period. 2. Experimental section 2.1. Materials P. roxburghii seeds collected from Arabari Forest, India are dried in sunlight for one week and the dried seeds are peeled to have kernel for extraction of oil by using hydraulic press. Hexane and Aniline are purchased from E-Merk Limited (Worli, Bombay) for the measurement of aniline point. 2.2. Composition of Putranjiva oil Vegetable oil mainly contains triglyceride esters of fatty acids and glycerol. The fatty acid composition of Putranjiva oil is analyzed by a GC capillary column, Supelcowax 10 (Bellefonte, Pennsylvania, USA) of 30 m 0.32 mm lm, 0.5 mm carrier gas He at 50 kPa in split injection system with a splitting ratio 1:40, FID detector system, injector and detector temperatures 250  C, oven temperature 240  C, injected quantity 1 ml. 2.3. Fuel properties measurement The physical and chemical properties of Putranjiva oil are measured and tabulated in Table 1. The caloric value is measured by

Bomb Calorimeter (Petroleum Instruments India Pvt. Ltd.) according to ASTM D-4809. The viscosity is measured by Redwood Viscometer (Petroleum Instruments India Pvt. Ltd). The ash point and re point are determined by PenskyMartens apparatus closed-cup method (ASTM D-93). The pour point is measured according to ASTM D-97. Carbon residue is measured by Conradson Method (ASTM D-189). The cetane number is determined by measuring the Aniline point. Diesel index is calculated and cetane number is found by the formulation stated below. API (141.5/specic gravity at 15  C) 131.5, diesel index (Aniline point in  F API)/100, cetane number 0.72 diesel index 10. 2.4. Measurement of performance and emissions Engine performance and emissions of Putranjiva oil have been studied. To measure emissions, automotive exhaust monitor of model PEA205 and smoke meter of model OMS103 (Indus Scientic Pvt. Ltd, India) are used. Automotive exhaust analyzer uses the principle of non-dispersive infrared (NDIR) for measurement of CO, CO2 and electrochemical sensors for measurement of O2, NOx. The operational principle of the smoke meter analyzer is attenuation of LED pure green light beam. In this context, the Ricardo Variable Compression Diesel Engine is used to run with 10%, 20%, 30% and 40% blends of pure Putranjiva oil with diesel at different loads (0 2.7 kW), and different injection timings (45 , 40 , 35 CA bTDC) at constant compression ratio 20:1. The important specications of the engine are as follows:
Number of cylinder Make Type Bore Stroke Speed Range of compression ratio Range of timing Single Ricardo & Co. Engineers Ltd, Shoreham, England Four stroke 76 mm 111 mm 10003000 rev/min 4.5:120:1 3045 CA bTDC

Table 1 Fuel properties of non-edible Putranjiva roxburghii oil Properties Viscosity in cSt (at 40  C) Cetane number Caloric value (kJ / kg) Pour point ( C) Specic gravity at 25  C Flash point ( C) Fire point ( C) Carbon residue (%) API Aniline point ( C) Diesel index Diesel 5.032 46.3 42707 12 0.834 78 85 0.1 36.95 58 50.40 Putranjiva 37.62 31.3 39582 3 0.918 48 53 <0.1 21.97 57 29.57

Fig. 1. Schematic diagram of the set-up. (1) Engine; (2) dynamometer; (3) injector; (4) surge tank; (5) fuel consumption metering device; (6) fuel tank; (7) exhaust gas thermocouple; (8) milli volt meter; (9) cooling water inlet; (10) cooling water outlet; (11) silencer; (12) main exhaust line; (13) orice meter with manometer; and (14) exhaust gas analyzer.

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345

550 500 450 400

Table 2a Performance and emission of 30% Putranjiva oil blends at different timings CA bTDC Load (kW) 0 0.72 1.07 2.04 0 0.72 1.07 2.04 0 0.72 1.07 2.04 BSFC (g/kW/h) 519 387 236 542 401 248 572 424 337

hbt (%) HC
(ppm) 0 12.3 16.62 27.24 0 11.82 15.93 25.72 0 11.2 15.09 19.01 42 44 52 65 43 46 54 66 46 49 58 69

CO (%) 0.003 0.004 0.008 0.014 0.003 0.005 0.011 0.018 0.004 0.008 0.012 0.022

BSFC (gm/kW/hr)

diesel 10% blend 20% blend 30% blend 40% blend

NOx (ppm) 16 18 21 34 14 17 21 32 12 15 19 28

Smoke (Hu) 8 12 15 23 10 15 19 26 11 18 21 30

Particulate (mg/m3) 31 39 49 67 36 44 56 69 39 48 59 72

45

40

350 300 250 200 0.0 0.4 0.8 1.2 1.6 2.0
35

Brake power (kW)

Fig. 2. Brake specic fuel consumption vs. brake power of diesel and Putranjiva oil blends at 1200 rpm, 45 bTDC angle and 20 compression ratio.

Table 2b Performance and emissions of diesel oil CAa bTDC 40 Load (kW) 0 0.72 1.07 2.04 BSFC (g/kW/h) 0 560 417 308

hbt
(%) 0 15.05 20.21 27.31

HC (ppm) 9 16 22 39

CO (%) 0.006 0.010 0.015 0.026

NOx (ppm) 6 9 15 26

Smoke (Hu) 12 15 20 31

Particulate (mg/m3) 41 53 65 74

A schematic diagram of the experimental set-up is shown in Fig. 1. The engine is coupled to a swinging eld electric dynamometer for the measurement of performance. A resistance can control the speed of the engine that is connected with dynamometer. A owmeter equipped with necessary cocks is connected from the main tank to measure fuel consumption. Exhaust gas temperature is measured with a chromelalumel thermocouple that is placed in the exhaust pipe centre about 10 cm away from the exhaust port. The injection timing of the fuel pump can be controlled by a hand lever which moves over a scale that is calibrated in the range of 3045 CA bTDC. 3. Results and discussion 3.1. Fuel properties and characteristics Putranjiva oil is yellow in color, highly pungent and volatile in nature [11]. This oil is rich in Oleic acid. The compositions of Putranjiva oil are C14:0;0.03%, C16:0;10.23%, C16:1;0.07%,

The tested Ricardo variable compression engine is designed for 40 CA bTDC.

C17:0;0.07%, C17:1;0.02%, C18:0;10.63%, C18:1;48.65%, C18:2;27.50%, C18:3;0.87%, C20:0;1.05%, C20:1;0.30%, C22:0;0.24%, C22:1;0.03%, and C24:0;0.31%. The viscosity of this oil is 37.6 cSt at 40  C whereas at 100  C the viscosity is 9.8 cSt. At high temperature the viscosity comes to below 10 cSt which reduce the atomization problem. Therefore preheating of high viscous vegetable oil before fuel injection is the best way to use in diesel engine without any modication. The fuel properties are shown in Table 1. The kinematic viscosity of Putranjiva oil is 7.4 times more than that of diesel determined at 40  C which is further reduced with increase in the diesel amount in the blends. A 30% blend of vegetable oil has viscosity values close to that of diesel fuel and 40% blend of vegetable oil has a viscosity slightly higher than that of diesel [1]. Pour point of Putranjiva oil is 3  C which is very different from other vegetable oils and

30 40 25 diesel 10% blend 20% blend 30% blend 40% blend 35 diesel 10% blend 20% blend 30% blend 40% blend

Smoke density (Hu)

0.8 1.2 1.6 2.0

Efficiency (%)

20

30 25 20 15 10 5

15

10

0 0.0 0.4 0.0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0 2.5

Brake power (kW)

Fig. 3. Brake thermal efciency vs. brake power of diesel and Putranjiva oil blends at 1200 rpm, 45 bTDC angle and 20 compression ratio.

Brake power (kW)

Fig. 4. Smoke of diesel and Putranjiva oil blends vs. brake power at 1200 rpm, 45 bTDC angle and 20 compression ratio.

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110 100

60

Particulates (mg/m3)

90 80 70 60 50 40

NOx (ppm)

diesel 10% blend 20% blend 30% blend 40% blend

50

40

diesel 10% blend 20% blend 30% blend 40% blend

30

20

10 30 20 0.0 0.4 0.8 1.2 1.6 2.0 2.4 0 0.0 0.4 0.8 1.2 1.6 2.0

Brake power (kW)

Fig. 5. Particulates of diesel and Putranjiva oil blends vs. brake power at 1200 rpm, 45 bTDC angle and 20 compression ratio.

Brake power (kW)

Fig. 7. Nitrogen oxide of diesel and Putranjiva oil blends vs. brake power at 1200 rpm, 45 bTDC angle and 20 compression ratio.

favorable in cold weather. The ash point, re point and carbon residue are better than the diesel oil for the engine application. The caloric value and cetane number of Putranjiva oil is less than diesel but is comparable with other vegetable oils as reported by Rakopoulos et al. [4]. 3.2. Engine performance at various blends The performance characteristics of Putranjiva oil and diesel blends are shown in Figs. 2 and 3. It is observed that up to 30% blend of Putranjiva oil with diesel gives quite satisfactory performance related to brake specic fuel consumption (BSFC) and brake thermal efciency (hbt). The cetane number and viscosity of blends higher than 30% are not so effective to give good performance. 3.3. Effect of timing Since the cetane number (CN) of a fuel is very important for the combustion, it is essential to study the CN of any fuel to be used in a diesel engine. Since the CN is related to ignition timing, the engine
0.030

performance is observed at different timings and at different brake power. Cetane number of Putranjiva oil is less than diesel which means that ignition timing is crucial for better combustion and hence improves the engine performance and emissions. It appears that Putranjiva oil blends yield better in performance at 45 CA bTDC injection timing in comparison to 40 CA bTDC timing for diesel (Table 2a and 2b). 3.4. Effect of loads on the emissions Figs. 46 show that smoke, particulates and CO of blends of Putranjiva oil are lower than for neat diesel which has a good impact on the environment and human beings. Higher concentration of Putranjiva oil in blends gives lower CO emission. Because of the higher ignition temperature of blends than diesel gives better combustion of vegetable oil and hence less exhaust emissions. The NOx emissions of blends are slightly higher than

100

0.025

CO emission (%)

0.020

0.015

HC (ppm)

diesel 10% blend 20% blend 30% blend 40% blend

80

diesel 10% blend 20% blend 30% blend 40% blend

60

40

0.010 20 0.005

0.000

0.0

0.4

0.8

1.2

1.6

2.0

0.0

0.5

1.0

1.5

2.0

Brake power (kW)

Fig. 6. Carbon monoxide vs. brake power of diesel and Putranjiva oil blends at 1200 rpm, 45 bTDC angle and 20 compression ratio.

Brake power (kW)

Fig. 8. Unburned hydrocarbon vs. break power of diesel and Putranjiva oil blends at 1200 rpm, 45 bTDC angle and 20 compression ratio.

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347

260 240 diesel 10% blend 20% blend 30% blend 40% blend

4. Conclusions From the results and discussion the following conclusion are arrived at:  The pure vegetable non-edible oil, P. roxburghii can be used as an alternative diesel fuel of diesel engine without any modication of engine in the rural areas during fuel crises.  Up to 30% blends of pure Putranjiva oil and diesel reduce the emissions such as CO, NOx, smoke, particulates, etc. The performance such as brake thermal efciency and BSFC are comparable to neat diesel.  Above 30% blend, the brake thermal efciency and BSFC show inferior quality. Hence it can be concluded that Putranjiva oil with diesel can be replaced instead of neat diesel for running the diesel engine satisfactorily with reduction of emissions that are very favorable as environmental impact on the human beings.

Exhaust temperature (C)

220 200 180 160 140 120 0.0

0.5

1.0

1.5

2.0

2.5

Brake power (kW)

Fig. 9. Exhaust gas temperature of diesel and Putranjiva oil blends vs. brake horsepower at 1200 rpm, 45 bTDC angle and 20 compression ratio.

Acknowledgement The authors are grateful to the Department of Science and Technology, India to support nancial assistance for this project. Thanks to Prof. Antonella De Leonardis (University of the Molise, Campobasso, Italy) for her valuable suggestion. References
[1] Pramanik K. Properties and use of Jatropha curcas oil and diesel fuel blends in compression ignition engine. Renewable Energy 2003;28:23948. [2] Senthil MK, Ramesh A, Nagalingam B. An experimental comparison of methods to use methanol and Jatropha oil in a compression ignition engine. Biomass and Bioenergy 2003;25:30918. [3] Nobukazu T, Koichiro I. Low carbon ower buildup, low smoke, and efcient diesel operation with vegetable oils by conversion to monoesters and blending with diesel oils or alcohols. SAE Paper No. 841161; 1984. [4] Rakopoulos CD, Antonopoulos KA, Rakopoulos DC, Hountalas DT, Giakoumis EG. Comparative performance and emissions study of a direct injection diesel engine using blends of diesel fuel with vegetable oils or bio-diesels of various origins. Energy Conversion Management 2006;47: 327287. [5] Demirbas A. Progress and recent trends in biofuels. Progress in Energy and Combustion Science 2007;33:118. [6] Engelman HW, Guenther DA, Silvis TW. Vegetable oil as a diesel fuel. Diesel and gas engine power division of ASME paper number 78-DGP-19. New York: ASME; 1978. [7] Seddon RH. Vegetable oils in commercial vehicles. Gas Oil Power 1942 August: 13646. [8] Quick GR. Developments in use of vegetable oils as fuel for diesel engines. ASAE paper number 80-1525. St Joseph, MI: ASAE; 1980. [9] Szybist JP, Boehman AL, Taylor JD, McCormick RL. Evaluation of formulation strategies to eliminate the biodiesel NOx effect. Fuel Processing Technology 2005;86:110926. [10] BanWeiss AG, Chen JY, Buchholz BA, Dibble RW. A numerical investigation into the anomalous slight NOx increase when burning biodiesel; a new (old) theory. Fuel Processing Technology 2007;88:65967. [11] Kumar N, Tripathi NN. Repellent property of volatile oil isolated from Putranjiva roxburghii against Trogoderma granarium associated with stored groundnut seeds. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, India, Section B: Biological Sciences 2004;74(2):17987.

neat diesel at low load (Fig. 7), which are due to the low cetane number of pure vegetable oil [9,10]. At higher loads, NOx emissions for Putranjiva oil blends are much lower than neat diesel. The NOx of blends increases slightly with load and fuel ow rate whereas neat diesel fuel shows a steady increase throughout the load range. With increasing load, fuel consumption rate increases and hence more heat is released during burning. NOx emission increases with increasing temperature of combustion chamber. Putranjiva oil has low caloric value than neat diesel and therefore the rate of increase of NOx is low with load than neat diesel. Another main factor is injection timing. Since optimum injection timing of diesel is 40 CA bTDC whereas the optimum injection timing of Putranjiva oil is 45 CA bTDC but both neat diesel and Putranjiva are tested on the same injection timing of 45 CA bTDC. Thus the effect of injection timing 45 CA bTDC of neat diesel has created enormous high temperature, yielding more NOx in comparison to blends. Fig. 8 shows higher hydrocarbon emission for Putranjiva oil blends than diesel. The volatile nature of Putranjiva oil increases the hydrocarbon emission in exhaust gas.

3.5. Exhaust gas temperature The exhaust gas temperature at various loads of different blends is compared with that of diesel in Fig. 9. The exhaust temperatures of blends are varied between 132  C and 254  C whereas for diesel these are 141  C and 257  C, indicating less variation in exhaust temperature. This is due to difference in caloric value of blends and difference in fuel consumption.