Performance and Emission Characteristics of Waste Transformer Oil and its diesel blends

Waste oils pose a very serious environment challenge because of their disposal problems all over the world. Currently, there is renewed interest in obtaining energy from wastes hitherto meant for disposal. These wastes are sources of energy and among the several sources of generating this energy are the waste-to-energy categories with potentials for useable fuel production. The biofuel is produced from the used transformer oil (WTO) by transesterification process using KOH, methanol. Single cylinder computerized research diesel engine made is used for experimental purpose. Experiments were conducted to evaluate the combustion, performance and emission parameters of a single cylinder, four strokes, air cooled, direct injection diesel engine, fueled with used transformer oil (WTO) and three of its diesel blends on varying the WTO concentration operation. There is an increase in thermal efficiency with significant improvement in reduction of smoke for WTO and its diesel blends compared to diesel. NO emission is higher for WTO and its diesel blends than that of diesel.