Investigation of the effect of hybrid biofuel on diesel engine characteristics

Today, with the gradual decrease of fossil fuel sources and the increase in environmental awareness, the search for alternative fuels and scientific studies in this field have accelerated. It is thought that biodiesel, which can be produced from many different vegetable and animal oils, has the potential to be used as an alternative fuel for diesel engines. Considering the environmental damage and disposal costs of animal waste oils, it seems attractive to convert these oils into biodiesel. However, studies show that the cold flow properties of biodiesel obtained from animal fats are weaker than biodiesel obtained from vegetable oils. In this context, in this study, hybrid biodiesel was produced by transesterification method from a mixture of leather industry waste oil from leather processing plants and canola oil and it was observed that the cold flow properties of the biodiesel obtained in this way were better than the biodiesel obtained from only leather industry waste oil.Then in order to determine its effect on diesel engine characteristics, hybrid biodiesel was mixed with petroleum-based diesel fuel (HB0) at 10% and 30% by volume, respectively HB10 and HB30 diesel-hybrid biodiesel fuel mixtures were prepared and engine tests were carried out in a single-cylinder diesel engine at different loads and speeds. The test results show that as the hybrid biodiesel addition increases, the specific fuel consumption increasesdue to the low calorific value of the biodiesel, while the thermal efficiency decreases slightly. It is seen that the initiation of injection and combustion of hybrid biodiesel mixtures is earlier than diesel fuel, and the ignition delay values are close to each other for all test fuels. It is observed that NOx emissions slightly increase as the hybrid biodiesel addition to diesel fuel increases. While the soot emissions of HB10 fuel decreased slightly, that of HB30 fuel increased. It has been observed that HB10 fuel provides both low emission and high performance output especially at 2400 rpm, which is the speed at which the maximum torque of the engine is obtained, and under high loads.