EXPERIMENTAL INVESTIGATION OF METHYL ESTER OF COTTON SEED OIL BLEND WITH DIESEL ON CI ENGINE

Petroleum based fuels worldwide have not only resulted in the rapid depletion of conventional energy sources, but have also caused severe air pollution. The search for an alternate fuel has led to many findings due to which a wide variety of alternative fuels are available at our disposal now. The existing studies have revealed the use of vegetable oils for engines as an alternative for diesel fuel. However, there is a limitation in using straight vegetable oils in diesel engines due to their high viscosity and low volatility. In the present work, neat cotton seed oil is converted into their respective methyl ester through transesterification process. Experiments were conducted using various blends of methyl ester of cotton seed oil with diesel in a single cylinder, four stroke vertical and air cooled Kirloskar diesel engine. The results showed higher brake thermal efficiency and lower brake specific fuel consumption for B25 when compared to other blends . There is an appreciable decrease in HC emission while the decrease in CO emission is marginal. However, there is an increase in the emission of NO_x. Reduction in smoke emission is observed for B25 at all loads, particularly there is a marked decrease of 5.4% at full load when compared to diesel. It was observed that the combustion characteristics of the blends of methyl ester of cotton seed oil with diesel followed closely with that of the base line diesel.