25 RRJET | Volume 5 | Issue 3 | September, 2016 Research & Reviews: Journal of Engineering and Technology ISSN:2319-9873 Comparative Performance and Emission Analysis of Different Blends of Karanja Oil and Its Methyl Ester in a Twin Cylinder Diesel Engine Chandrakanta Nayak* *Department of Mechanical Engineering, GITA, Bhubaneswar-752054, Odisha, India Research Article INTRODUCTION Due to higher brake thermal effciency of diesel engine compared to gasoline engine, it is quite popular in agriculture and transport sector. Since, India being an agricultural country, huge amount of diesel fuel is consumed in agriculture sector. Due to rapid depletion of diesel fuel, its rising prices and hazards emissions from vehicles, an alternative fuel for diesel is critically important for our nation’s economic growth and security. Keeping this in view, more interest is generated to do research work to fnd out the viable alternative fuel for diesel engine in India. Adaptation of bio-origin alternative fuels can address all the issues. Natural gas, LPG, Hydrogen and bio-derived gas such as Producer gas, Syngas etc, and liquids such as straight vegetable oil and biodiesel appear more attractive fuel in view of their eco-friendly nature [1,2] . Agarwal and Das [3] stated that the higher viscosity of plant oil creates some engine problems like poor fuel atomization which leads to poor engine performance, ring sticking, injector pump failure and injector deposit etc. Wang et al. [4] conducted experiment using vegetable oil blends with diesel and presented that lower NO x and a small change in CO emission compared to diesel. Senthil et al. [5] carried out experiment using Jatropha oil- diesel blend and reported that EGT, HC, smoke and CO emissions are higher than base line diesel. Agarwal et al. [6] conducted experiments using preheated Karanja oil. It was observed that during the engine operation on Karanja oil both in preheated and blended form, the performance and emission parameters were found to be similar with fossil diesel for lower concentrations of blend. Whereas, for higher concentrations of blend, performance and emissions were observed to be marginally low. Deshpande [7] used blends of linseed oil and diesel to run the CI engine. Minimum smoke and maximum brake thermal effciency were noted in this study . Nazar et al. [8] analyzed the performance of coconut oil in diesel engine in bio-diesel and neat mode. It was reported that neat coconut oil and its methyl ester can be directly used in diesel engines without any modifcations. Engine performance with coconut oil methyl ester was better than with neat coconut oil. Alltiparmak et al. [9] examined the effect of blends of tall oil bio-diesel with diesel fuel as substitute fuels for diesel. It was found that the performance parameters such as power output and engine torque with tall oil biodiesel-diesel blends increased up to 5.9% and 6.1% respectively. It was also observed that Received date: 14/01/2016 Accepted date: 21/07/2016 Published date: 28/07/2016 *For Correspondence Chandrakanta Nayak, Department of Mechanical Engineering, GITA, Bhubaneswar-752054, Odisha, India, Tel: +91-9861938217, E-mail: Chandra_kec@rediffmail.com Keywords: Twin cylinder, Diesel engine, Karanja oil, Methyl ester, Emission. ABSTRACT In the present work, an experimental investigation is carried out to evaluate the performance and emission characteristics of a twin cylinder diesel engine using different blends of Karanja oil and its methyl ester with fossil diesel under different load conditions. Both the fuels are blended with diesel in proportions of 10% and 20% each by mass and studied under various load conditions in engine. The study reveals that the performance parameters are very close to that of fossil diesel. However, the brake thermal effciency and brake specifc energy consumption of 20% blend of methyl ester are better than fossil diesel under certain loads. The emission characteristics are also studied and found that all blended fuels show better emissions than pure diesel except K20 which shows higher CO emission compared to base line diesel. Again, it is observed that blending up to 20% both in neat oil as well as bio-diesel can be accepted as a suitable fuel for use in standard diesel engines without any engine modifcation.