Combustion characteristics, performance and exhaust emissions of a diesel engine fueled with a waste cooking oil biodiesel mixture

In this study, a mixture of biodiesel fuels produced from two different kinds of waste cooking oils was blended in 5% and 10% with No. 2 diesel fuel. The biodiesel/No. 2 diesel fuel blends were tested in a single-cylinder, direct injection, four-stroke, natural aspirated diesel engine under four different engine loads (BMEP 0.48–0.36–0.24–0.12 MPa) and 2200 rpm engine speed. Despite of the earlier start of injection, the detailed combustion and engine performance results showed that the ignition delay with the biodiesel addition was decreased for the all engine loads with the earlier combustion timings due to higher cetane number of biodiesel fuel. Meanwhile the maximum heat release rate and the in-cylinder pressure rise rate were slightly decreased and the combustion duration was generally increased with the biodiesel addition. However, significant changings were not observed on the maximum in-cylinder pressures. In addition, it was observed that the indicated mean effective pressure values were slightly varied depending on the start of combustion timing and the center of heat release location. It was found that 5% and 10% biodiesel fuel addition resulted in slightly increment on break specific fuel consumption (up to 4%) and reduction on break thermal efficiency (up to 2.8%). The biodiesel additions also increased NOx emissions up to 8.7% and decreased smoke and total hydrocarbon emissions for the all engine loads. Although there were no significant changes on CO emissions at the low and medium engine loads, some reductions were observed at the full engine load. Also, CO2 emissions were slightly increased for the all engine loads.