Performance Evaluation of Diesel Engine Fueled with Jatropha Methyl Ester Blends along with Sunflower Oil

Sunflower oil is used for domestic purpose such as cooking oil. This Sunflower oil is blended with jatopha oil and converted into biodiesel using a process known as transesterification process. In this process oil reacts with a monohydric alcohol in presence of a catalyst to produce a biodiesel of monoalkyl ester. In the present work diesel engine using methyl-ester of Jatropha and Sunflower oil as fuel was evaluated for its performance and exhaust emissions. The fuel’s performance is analyzed for Jatropha and Sunflower oil, blends of these oils and diesel as baseline at varying loads. The variations in the loads were analyzed to observe its influence on the engine performance with different fuels. Experimental results show that diesel engine gives poor performance than the Sunflower oil and its blends with diesel. For Jatropha and Sunflower biodiesel and its blended fuels the exhaust gas temperature increased with increase in power and amount of biodiesel. However, diesel blends showed reasonable efficiency, lower smoke, CO and HC.