A study on blending effects of biodiesel with pure diesel / Florina Karen AK Jones

Project paper (Bachelor of Chemical Engineering) -- Universiti Malaysia Pahang - 2008

Biodiesel is a very attractive source of fuel because it is renewable. It can be used either pure or in blends with diesel fuel in unmodified diesel engines. It reduces some exhaust pollutants and can be produced easily from common feedstock. However, the relative simplicity of biodiesel production can disguise the importance of maintaining high quality standards for any fuel supplied to a modern diesel engine. The purpose of this study is to improve biodiesel properties by blending it with pure diesel and to measure the basic properties of waste palm oil biodiesel-diesel fuel blends according to the standard specifications of diesel fuels. Therefore, effects of blending biodiesel with petrodiesel are analyzed. Neat fuels are designated as B100 and B0, respectively. The samples of biodiesel-petrodiesel blends consist of B0, B5, B10, B20, B30, B40, B50, B60, B70, B80, B90, and B100. The total blended fuel was taken for 25 ml for all analysis except for combustion test where it requires 1.5 L of the blended fuel. All these samples have gone through five types of fuel analysis namely viscosity test, moisture content, acid value, TLC test and combustion test. From the results of the analysis, it is found out that optimum of volume ratio mixing in order to improve the cold flow properties if biodiesels are used under severe winter conditions. The most optimum range for biodiesel-diesel blending is from B20 until B50. Range from B20 to B50 gives the most optimum condition for engine fuel. Fuels below B20 have a better quality as they contain as less moisture content as possible where most of them have moisture content below than 0.05%. On the other hand, blended fuels above B50 that contain more amount of biodiesel increases the amount of methyl ester, more than 0.68 conversions. The emission particulates can also be improved when optimum amount of biodiesel is blended to the petrodiesel. The amount of O2 is more than 8.3% starting form B20 onwards. The amount of CO2 was able to be reduced from 9.4% downwards starting from B20 until B100. Oppositely, the amount of NOx was the highest at B100 which is 31 ppm and the lowest at B0 which is 3 ppm. The amount of free fatty acid also increases as the volume ratio of biodiesel increase. At B0, there is no presence of free fatty acid. At B100, the value of free fatty acid is the highest which is 0.62 ml NaOH/g and 1.3 ml NaOH/g for acid value. -Author