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Globally, the demand for energy is increasing due to both increase in population and enhancement in the lifestyle of people. Most of the energy demand at present is met from fossil fuels, which are not only exhaustible but also a threat to the environment. Various routes of sustainable energy resources are being explored to address the above-mentioned issues and fuel made from used tyre may be one of the promising options. India is one of the fastest growing economies and every year 10 million new vehicles are registered. Due to poor road conditions, nearly fourfold tyres of this number are dumped as waste. This large stock of dumped tyres are non-biodegradable and creates other problems like a breeding site for mosquitos, or source of pollution in case of accidental fire. In order to cope with the large pile-up of used tyres, pyrolysis of these tyres could be a sustainable route.

The growing energy demand and limited petroleum resources in the world have guided researchers towards the use of clean alternative fuels like alcohols for their better tendency to decrease the engine emissions. To comply with the future stringent emission standards, innovative diesel engine technology, exhaust gas after-treatment, and clean alternative fuels are required. The use of alcohols as a blending agent in diesel fuel is rising, because of its benefits like enrichment of oxygen, premixed low temperature combustion (LTC) and enhancement of the diffusive combustion phase. Several researchers have investigated the relationship between LTC operational range and cetane number. In a light-duty diesel engine working at high loads, a low-cetane fuel allowed a homogeneous lean mixture with improved NOx and smoke emissions joint to a good thermal efficiency.

Rapid depletion of fossil fuels is urgently demanding an extensive research work to find out the viable alternative fuel for meeting sustainable energy demand without any environmental impact. In the future, our energy systems will need to be renewable, sustainable, efficient, cost-effective, convenient and safe. Therefore, researchers has shown interest towards alternative fuels like vegetable oils, alcohols, LPG, CNG, Producer gas, biogas in order to substitute conventional fuel i.e. diesel used in compression ignition (CI) engine. However, studies have suggested that trans-esterified vegetable oils retain quite similar physico-chemical properties comparable to diesel. Besides having several advantages, its use is restricted due to higher emissions i.e. NOx, CO, HC and deposits due to improper combustion. Hence, there is a need of cleaner fuel for diesel engines for the forthcoming stringent emissions norms and the fossil depletion.

As neat crude palm oil is not ideally suitable as a fuel for diesel engines because of its high viscosity; process of transesterification was adopted to develop methyl ester of palm oil that approximate the properties and performance of hydrocarbon-based diesel fuel. Various properties of the methyl ester of palm oil were evaluated and compared in relation with that of neat diesel. The prepared methyl ester of palm oil, blended in different concentrations with neat diesel was then subjected to performance and emission tests in order to evaluate its suitability in diesel engine. The data thus generated were compared with base line data generated from neat diesel. An optimal blend of 10-20% methyl ester of palm oil with neat diesel exhibited best performance and smooth engine operation without any symptoms of undesired combustion phenomenon. This suggests use of 10-20% of biodiesel developed from palm oil in diesel engine with out any difficulty.