Comparative study of combustion, performance, and emissions of a diesel engine fuelled with biodiesel blend with metallic and organic nano-particles

This study investigates the effect of adding two types of nano-particles to castor biodiesel-diesel on combustion, performance, and emission characteristics of diesel engine. Blended fuels were experimentally tested by running the engine at various loads at a constant speed. The experimental analysis indicated that diesel-biodiesel blends with aluminium oxide nano-particles (ALNPs) show better results than multi walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNT) for higher cylinder peak pressure, lower ignition delay, higher BTE and lower emissions for CO while MWCNT diesel-biodiesel blends have slight improvement in NOx emissions. The peak pressure increase was approximately 2.2% while BTE increased by 6.1%. The maximum reduction in NOx emissions was 30.5%, while the reduction in CO emission was 28.52%. For MWCNT addition, increase in cylinder pressure recorded was 3.3%, and the BTE was enhanced by 6.2%, NOx emission decreased by 30.25%, while the greatest reduction in CO was 57.2% for the fuel blend with ALNPs. Finally, adding MWCNT to biodiesel blend CB30 increases the cost of producing 1.0 kWh by 41%-170% whereas adding ALNPs has a negligible effect in the cost.