EFFECT OF USING BLENDS OF SOAPNUT BIO-DIESEL WITH PETRO-DIESEL AS ENGINE FUELS ON PERFORMANCE PARAMETERS OF A SINGLE CYLINDER FOUR STROKE DIESEL ENGINE

As a developing country, India is in need of potential bio-diesels that are derived from non-edible vegetable oils to minimise the dependency on petro-diesel, thus reducing the foreign expenditure on crude oil import, as well as to meet the environmental concerns. For the reason, in the present work, feasibility of soapnut (Sapindus Mukorossi) bio-diesel as a potential alternate fuel for diesel engine, as well as engine performance parameters of a single cylinder four stroke diesel engine using petro-diesel and lean soapnut bio-diesel blends with petro-diesel as engine fuels, were experimentally investigated. The experimental investigation showed soapnut bio-diesel to be a potential alternate fuel for diesel engine. Moreover, lean soapnut bio-diesel blends exhibited satisfactory engine performance over the entire load range with performance of 10% blend of soapnut bio-diesel with petro-diesel i.e. B10 being marginally better than the petro-diesel as well as other blends.