Comparative performance studies on DI diesel engine with neem de-oiled cake and Jatropha methyl ester diesel blends

Alternative sources for petroleum fuels have been the prime concern of most of the environmentalists. It is also a concern for economists due to the depletable nature of the fossil fuel. Vegetable oils are considered as good alternatives to diesel as their properties are close to diesel. This work aimed to produce a fuel by adding different proportions of de-oiled neem cake with diesel and to conduct experiments to find out its performance, emission and combustion characteristics.

At present, biodiesel is commercially produced from the vegetable oils by esterification processes. Because most of these oils are edible, its cost restricts the usage. The de-oiled cakes after crushing the seeds containing around 2 per cent of oil with less fatty materials are aimed in this study.

The fuel is prepared by adding dry neem de-oiled cake powder at different proportions ranging from 3 to 25 per cent by weight with diesel. Experimental results reveal that the fuel has the potential to reduce smoke, CO emissions simultaneously along with marginal increase in brake thermal efficiency.

In this published research work, the neem oil is used as biodiesel blends with diesel. Here, the authors have used neem de-oiled cake as a replacement for diesel.