Analysis of Performance, Combustion and Emission Characteristics of Multi-Cylinder CRDI Engine using Palm Oil Methyl Ester (POME) as a Fuel

Abstract

The world is affronted with some serious environmental issues and depletion of fossil fuels at a faster rate with rapid growth in automotive sector. This led many researchers to churn out a renewable and environmental friendly alternative fuel. Biodiesel is recognized as one such solution to this crisis. Biodegradability, low volatility, high cetane number, no sulphur emissions strengthens the claim. Though many researches have been done in this area with wide variety of non-edible oils in various blends with diesel, all those researches are mostly carried out in constant speed agricultural Compression Ignition (CI) Engines. But only few experiments’ have been done in automotive engines (i.e.) multi-cylinder variable speed Common Rail Direct Injection (CRDI) Engines. Hence our research work reports the preparation of Palm Oil Methyl Ester (POME) by trans-esterification of Palm Oil (PO) and detailed experimental and comparative investigation of Performance, Combustion and Emission characteristics of automotive engine (TATA Vista) run with various blends of biodiesel prepared (POME B5, B10, B15, B20) as a fuel. Based on the experimental works we could infer that Palm Oil Methyl Ester (POME) as biodiesel proves to be a good prospect as an alternative fuel to power automotives with its sustainability and lower HC, CO, NOx emissions.