THE PERFORMANCE OF BIODIESEL MIXTURES IN A VCR ENGINE

In recent years alternate fuels have received much attention because the world is confronted with the twin crisis of fossil fuel depletion and environmental degradation. The biodiesel produced from Jatropha oil by transesterification process represents one of the most promising options to reduce the use of conventional fossil fuels. The present work studies the performance and emission characteristics of a single cylinder water cooled variable compression ratio engine using jatropha biodiesel and its mixtures as fuel in a direct injection diesel engine. An additive DEE (Di-ethyl ether) is used to enhance the combustion properties of biodiesel. A total of 3 samples of fuels are used such as diesel, BD25 (Jatropha biodiesel 25%), BDM (Biodiesel mixture). The performance and emission characteristics are measured at compression ratios of 16, 17 and18 by varying the load and maintaining the speed constant at 1500 rpm. From the study results it has been found that better results are obtained at a compression ratio of 18. At this best compression ratio the performance and emission characteristics of biodiesel mixture is compared with BD 25 and Diesel Fuel (DF). It is observed that the use of additive have improved the performance and emission characteristics of biodiesel mixture and can be used as a substitute for diesel.