PRODUCTION OF BIODIESEL AND EVALUATION OF PERFORMANCE AND EMISSION CHARACTERISTICS OF MASTWOOD SEED

Inflation in fuel prices and unprecedented shortage of its supply has promoted the interest in development of the alternative sources for petroleum fuels. The present paper discusses with the various phases of production of bio-diesel from mastwood seeds. The phases of shelling, milling, extraction of seed oil and transesterification are discussed. Investigations were carried out to study the performance, emission and combustion characteristics of mastwood seed oil. The results were compared with diesel fuel, and the selected mastwood seed oil fuel blends (10%, 20%, 30% and 100%). The engine performance parameters such as specific fuel consumption, Brake Thermal Efficiency and Exhaust Emission (CO, SOx, HC, and NOx) were recorded. The exhaust gas emissions are reduced with increase in biodiesel concentration. The experimental results proved that the use of biodiesel in compression ignition engine is a viable alternative to diesel. From the comparison of results, it is inferred that the engine performance is improved with significant reduction in emissions for the chosen oil without any engine modification