Performance, combustion and emission characteristics of a single-cylinder constant speed compression ignition engine using soybean methyl esters

Abstract

The present study was aimed to produce biodiesel from soybean oil and to investigate its characteristics. Soybean oil-based bio diesel properties are observed and tested in the fuel testing laboratory with standard procedures. It is found that soybean oil-based biodiesel has similar properties as that of diesel fuel. An experimental set-up was used in the study to analyse the performance, combustion and emission of soybean oil biodiesel with respect to normal diesel by using different blends (B20, B40, B60, B80 and B100). It is observed that there is no difficulty found in running the engine, but the performance of the biodiesel blends quite deviated from normal diesel. The combustion characteristics of the tested blends were in agreement with normal diesel. The carbon emissions are much lower for soybean oil biodiesel blends than diesel.