Non Conventional Energy Source For Small Capacity Diesel Engine From High FFA Rice Bran Oil

Abstract

Energy is an essential requirement for
economic and social development for any country but,
with advent of industrial revolution and sky rocketing of
petroleum fuel costs in present day has led to growing
interest in alternative fuels which can be produced from
locally available resources within the country such as
alcohol, biodiesel, vegetable oils etc in order to provide
a suitable substitute to diesel. Increased environmental
awareness and depletion of resources are driving
industry to develop viable alternative fuels from
renewable resources that are environmentally more
acceptable. Vegetable oil is a potential alternative fuel.
The most detrimental properties of vegetable oils are
its high viscosity and low volatility, and these
cause several problems during their long duration
usage in compression ignition
engines. The most commonly used method to make
vegetable oil suitable for use in CI engines is to
convert it into biodiesel. India is the highest producer
of rice bran oil in the world.The estimated yield of
crude Rice Bran Oil (RBO) is about 8.1 lakh tons of
which only 50% is of edible grade, 50% of the total
available rice bran oil is left unutilized due to the
presence of active lipase in bran which hydrolyses the
triglyceride to fatty acids and glycerol, as a result the
Free Fatty Acid (FFA) content increases making it
difficult to refine, due to the presence of tightly
associated wax and lack of economic stabilization
methods most of the bran is used as animal feed or for
industrial application. This study targets at finding the
effects of the engine parameters to compare the
performance of diesel and rice bran biodiesel blends.
Rice Bran (RB) blends were found to be substitute for
diesel fuel. By using blends the engines shows
excellent performance properties., also Brake Thermal
Efficiency (BTHE), Brake Specific Fuel Consumption
(BSFC) and Brake Specific Energy Consumption
(BSEC) shows remarkable results when tested.