The impact of preheating experiments on engine performance and exhaust emission with different biodiesel fuels

Despite current energy crises and declining energy reserves, the number of vehicles are gradually increasing. This dilemma inevitably will have the way for future challenges in terms of energy requirement and utulizing existing vehicles. In our country, the main part of the energy consumption is oil derivatives which are used in vehicles and the 70 % of energy demand comes from imports. Because of all these reasons, it is an important necessity to improve alternative fuels instead of oil. At a global scale, especially in recent surveys on obtaining alternative fuels such as biodiesel from vegatable oils via esterification are taken into consideration very importantly. Biodiesel unlike oil which have reserve dependency, is a renewable energy resource. In this study, we have produced biodiesel from soya bean, canola, corn core and sun flower by means of methyl esterification. These fuels have been tested by using biodiesel blends at ratios of 5 %, 20 %, 50 % and 100 % biodiesel . In order to reduce viscosity o f 100 % biodiesel, it was increased in the temperature of biodiesel at 50, 70, 100 °C and engine performance and exhaust emissions were measured at the full loads and variable speed. From experiments, at varied blend and temperature ratios, in terms of engine performance and characteristics we have observed a decrease in engine moment and effective power, an increase in specific fuel consumption and fuel/air ratio. Also, in different blend and temperature ratios we have observed a fall in CO2, CO, HC ratios and a rise in NOX emissions. Key Words : Alternative Fuel, Biodiesel, Diesel Engine, Exhaust Emissions