Performance, combustion and emission characteristics of CI engine using waste cooking oil methyl ester - diesel - ethanol blends

In this work, waste cooking oil methyl ester (WCOME) and diesel blends, with ethanol as additive was used in a CI engine and its effect on engine performance and emission are studied. Different proportions of ethanol were mixed with the WCOME - diesel blend to achieve best operating characteristics of the engine. WCOME - diesel blend that consists of 10 % of WCOME & 90 % of diesel was taken as the base fuel for this study. Ethanol in different percentages ranging from 5 % to 20 % was added to the WCOME-diesel blend to prepare various blends for the experimentation. Performance parameters like brake thermal efficiency, brake specific fuel consumption and heat release rate, cylinder pressure along with the emission characteristics like NOx, HC, CO & smoke opacity were compared for the whole range of six different test blends. Results show that adding 5 % ethanol with the WCOME-diesel blends proves to be the superior blend as it produces less emissions with reduced BSFC.