Experimental Investigation of Diesel Blend with Esterified Cotton Seed Oil on Cooper Diesel Engine

Petroleum based fuels play a vital role in rapid depletion of conventional energy sources along with increasing demand and also major contributors of air pollutants. There are wide varieties ofalternative fuels available;the past work revealed that uses ofvegetable oils for engines in place of diesel were investigated. However, several operational and durability problems of using straight vegetable oils in diesel engines due to their higher viscosity and low volatility.In present work, neat cotton seed oil is converted into their respective methyl esters through esterification process. Experiments were conducted using various blends with diesel and respective methyl ester in a cooper diesel engine.The results show that the maximum brake thermal efficiency and minimum specific fuel consumption were found for blends B20 and B40. There is an appreciable decrease in HC and CO2 emissions while the decrease in CO emission is marginal. However, emission of NOx is increased. It was observed that the combustion characteristics of the blends of esterified cotton seed oil with diesel followed closely with that of the base line diesel.