A Comparative Combustion Analysis of Rubber Seed Oil and its Methyl Ester in a D.I. Diesel Engine 2008-01-1386

The world is confronted with the two major crisis namely, fossil fuel shortage and environmental degradation. The non edible vegetable oil and its methyl ester have been considered a promising option. In the present investigation, tests were carried out to analyze the combustion process of Rubber Seed Oil Methyl Ester (RSOME), Rubber Seed Oil (RSO) and compared with diesel. The engine performance and exhaust emissions were also studied for better understanding of the combustion process. It was observed that the premixed combustion phase of RSOME combustion was more intense than that of RSO due to its lower ignition delay. It was also noted that the ignition delay and combustion duration decreased with RSOME, which indicated higher heat release resulting in higher thermal efficiency than RSO. The brake thermal efficiency is 26.53% with RSO, 27.89% with RSOME and 29.93% with diesel at full load. The peak pressure increased by 2.3 bar for RSOME compared to that of RSO. In the case of RSOME, the exhaust emissions HC, CO and smoke levels decreased with an increase in NO_x compared to RSO. The smoke emission reduced from 6.1 BSU to 5.5 BSU with RSOME.