Prospective Evaluation of Pumpkin Seed Oil as an Alternative Fuel – A Novel Experimentation

There is a major issue worldwide on the level of contamination caused by emissions of I. C. Engines that debilitate the issues concerning the high cost of raw petroleum. This has prompted an alternative for diesel engine. The pursuit has been centered on vegetable oil due to its sustainable source from agribusiness and the way that it is richly accessible and uniformly circulated everywhere throughout the world. One of such vegetable oil sources is "Fluted Pumpkin plant" ("Telfairia Occidentalis Hook F.") which is from the cucurbit case family and is described by its thick and enlarged fruit size. It is a creeper vegetative shrub that spreads low over the ground and has expansive lobed leaves and tendrils. Generally, the oil from pumpkin seeds can be extracted in a mechanical extractor utilizing "normal hexane" as solvent and transesterified to get bio fuel whose fuel properties can be assessed following the American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) techniques for biodiesel. The biodiesel thus obtained can likewise be utilized in different blends with the petroleum diesel in Four stroke naturally aspirated Diesel Engines. Phytosterols present in the pumpkin seed oil are likewise being considered for their part in bringing down cholesterol levels. The pumpkin seeds (oil and cake) can be profitable as additives in a variety of applications, since they give a decent wellspring of protein, and are rich in antioxidants, which can help prevent cancer; they are high in "monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fatty acids". At the point when pumpkin seed oil is expelled from the seed, a by-product in the form of "pumpkin seed cake” is produced. Pumpkin seeds basically comprise of protein and fat giving a concentrated source of energy. The current work involves extraction of biofuel from pumpkin seeds and blending it with the diesel at different constituent percentage of 10, 20, 30 and 40, followed by evaluation of the characteristics. The results clearly infer that the blending of the bio diesel with the petroleum diesel will vary the properties such as Flash Point, Fire Point, Viscosity and Calorific Value which may have further effect on the performance characteristics of “Internal combustion engines”.