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Dwindling petroleum reserves and alarming level of air pollution has been an issue of great concern in recent times and researchers across the world are experimenting on variety of renewable fuels for meeting the future energy demands. Within the gamut of alternative fuels, biofuels are the most promising and have the potential to mitigate climate change and lease a new life to existing IC engines. The vegetable oils are having immense potential in this context and have been used either in neat or modified form by large number of researchers. Jatropha curcus is a perennial plant and bears non edible oil. The plant is drought tolerant and has been cultivated all over the arid and semi-arid areas for reforestation. In the present study, blends of jatropha oil and ethanol have been prepared in 5, 10, 15 and 20% (v/v) and evaluation of important properties of blends has been carried. The results show that properties are quite similar to diesel fuel.

The use of alternative fuel has many advantages and the main ones are its renewability, biodegradability with better quality exhaust gas emission, which do not contribute to raise the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. The use of non-edible vegetables oils as an alternative fuels for diesel engine is accelerated by the energy crisis due to depletion of resources and increase in environmental problems. In Asian countries like India, great need of edible oil as a food so cannot use these oils as alternative fuels for diesel engine. However there are many issues related to the use of vegetable oils in diesel engine that is high viscosity, low calorific value, high self-ignition temperature etc. Jatropha curcas has been promoted in India as a sustainable substitute to diesel fuel. This research prepared micro emulsions of ethanol and Jatropha vegetable oil in different ratio and find out the physico-chemical parameters to compare with mineral diesel oil.

Concerns about long term availability of petroleum based fuels and stringent environmental norms have been a subject for deliberations around the globe. The vegetable oil based fuels and alcohols are very promising alternative fuels for substitution of diesel, reduce exhaust emissions and to improve combustion in diesel engines which is mainly possible due to oxygenated nature of these fuels. Jatropha oil is important non-edible oil in India which is either used in neat or modified form as diesel fuel. Furthermore n-butanol is renewable higher alcohol having properties quite similar to diesel fuel. In the present study, n-butanol was blended in Jatropha Oil (JO) and Jatropha Oil Methyl Ester (JME) on volumetric basis (10 and 20%). The blends were homogeneous and stable and there was no phase separation. The different physicochemical properties of blends were evaluated as per relevant standards.

Biodiesel from non-edible vegetable oils is of paramount significance in India due to insufficient edible oil production. The present work deals with relatively underutilized non-edible oil “Schleichera oleosa” or “Kusum”. The Kusum biodiesel (KB) was produced using a two stage esterification cum transesterification process as the free fatty acid content of the oil was high. Important physico-chemical properties were evaluated and they were found to conform with corresponding ASTM/EN standards. Various test fuels were prepared for the engine trial by blending 10%, 20%, 30% and 40% of KB in diesel by volume and were named as KB10, KB20, KB30 and KB40 respectively. The results showed that full load brake thermal efficiency was dropped by 3.8% to 17% with increase in KB composition in the test fuel. Diesel (D100) showed the maximum full load brake specific energy consumption followed by KB10, KB20, KB30 and KB40.