The potential of using vegetable oil fuels as fuel for diesel engines

Vegetable oils are produced from numerous oil seed crops, While all vegetab le oils have high energy content, most require some processing to assure sa fe use in internal combustion engines. Some of these oils already have been evaluated as substitutes for diesel fuels. The effects of vegetable oil fu els and their methyl esters (raw sunflower oil, raw cottonseed oil, raw soy bean oil and their methyl esters, refined corn oil, distilled opium poppy o il and refined rapeseed oil) on a direct injected, four stroke, single cyli nder diesel engine performance and exhaust emissions was investigated in th is paper. The results show that from the performance viewpoint. both vegeta ble oils and their esters are promising alternatives as fuel for diesel eng ines, Because of their high viscosity, drying with time and thickening in c old conditions, vegetable oil fuels still have problems, such as flow, atom ization and heavy particulate emissions. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.