9

201
0

MINI PROJECT
6th Semester
Department Of Automobile
Engineering, B.V.B.C.E.T. Hubli.

By,
Prasanna.Shetti
Praveen.Madiwalar
Suresh.Karalatti
Mahammad.Wasim
 Department of

AUTOMOBILE ENGINEERING

CERTIFICATE
This is to certify that the project work entitled “PREPERATION OF
BIODIESEL AND TESTING”, a bonafide work carried out by
Prasanna.Shetti, of 6th semester MINI PROJECT in Automobile Engineering,
for the academic year 2009-2010. It is certified that all the
corrections/suggestions have been incorporated in the report deposited in
the department library. The project report has been approved as it satisfies
the academic requirement in respect of project work prescribed for the 6 th
semester Automobile Engineering curriculum.

Prof. Gireesh.N.M Prof. T. Veeramahantesh Dr. Ashok

Shettar

Swamy

(PROJECT GUIDE) (HEAD OF DEPARTMENT)

(PRINCIPAL)

Name of the examiner: Signature with date

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1.

2. ACKNOWLEDGMENT

Behind the success of any task, there will be sincere and

valuable suggestions and co-operation of eminent people and we
do take immense pleasure to acknowledge them.

The progress would not have taken shape in uniform discipline

manner, with the guidance of our beloved, Shri
T.Veeramahantesh Swamy, head of the department of
Automobile engineering, and Shri Gireesh.N.M who is constant
source of our inspiration and who rendered valuable help in
channelizing our efforts in right direction. Our special thanks to
them, their thoughts and guidance are reflected in every page of
our report.

We take this opportunity to express our sincere thanks to our

beloved principal Dr. Ashok Shettar, for providing the required
facilities.

We thank Mechanical Department, for providing

infrastructure, without which we would have not completed our
project in the stipulated time.
We would like to thank all the staff of Automobile
engineering department for their valuable co operation in
under taking this project.

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 Last, but not the least, we express our affectionate thanks to
our parents, friends and all those who have helped us directly and
indirectly during this course of our dissertation.

Project Title:
PREPERATION OF BIODIESEL AND
TESTING

TEAM MEMBERS:

Sl NAME ROLL USN

No. No.
1 Prasanna.Shet 28 2BV07AU0
ti 31
2 Praveen.Madi 30 2BV07AU0
walar 33
3 Suresh.Karalat 50 2BV07AU0
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 ti 56
4 Mahammad.W 70 2BV05AU0
asim 12

CONTENTS
Chapter-1 Introduction
1.1 Alternate fuel for internal combustion engine

1.2 Vegetable Oil resource in India

1.3 Objective of the study

Chapter-2 Review of literature

2.1 Properties of biodiesel

2.2 Advantage of biodiesel

Chapter-3 Experimental setup

3.1 Transesterification setup

3.2 Setup for Testing of oil

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Chapter-Result and Discussion
4.1 Properties of fuel

4.2 Fuel testing

CONCLUSION.

REFERENCE.

CHAPTER 1.0

INTRODUCTION
Energy is an essential requirement for economic and
social development of any country. Petroleum based fuels
have become important for a country’s development in
the modern and fast moving world. Currently more than
80% of the fuel consumed by internal combustion
engines in the transport, agriculture and other
applications is drawn from petroleum sources in the
form of petrol, diesel oil, heavy oils and natural gas. It is
well known that these petroleum reserves are limited and
will exhaust in the long run. Due to fuel shortages, there
has been a steep rise in the cost of petroleum products in
recent years. India imports crude oil at a cost of
approximately Rs. 2,00,000 crores in foreign exchange
every year. Even 5% replacement of petroleum fuel by
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bio-fuel can help India save Rs.10,000 crores per year in
foreign exchange.
The demand for petroleum products in 1990-91 was
58.87 Million Metric Tons (MMT). The crude oil imports by
India have shown considerable increase during this
decade. During 2001-2007, the crude oil imports were
69.4, 87.9, 90.4, 95.9, 99.4 and 110 MMT respectively. It
is expected to reach 115 million tons in 2007-2008. By
the year 2010 this import percentage is likely to increase
to 82%. Diesel is mainly consumed in the transport,
industrial and agricultural sectors. Furthermore, the ratio
of diesel fuel to gasoline fuel consumption in India is 7:1
and with the Golden Quadrilateral project there will be
further addition of the vehicles on the road. The increase
in the use of petroleum products will also proportionately
increase the risks of health hazards. The harmful gases
emitted by the burning of fossil fuels will pose a big
threat to the environment. The leakage of crude oil
during transportation spells disaster for both the flora and
fauna of the area and the cleaning operations are
expensive. Thus, India faces the major challenge of
meeting the high demand of oil to meet the growing
energy needs.
The increasing price factor coupled with increased
awareness about environmental degradation has
prompted governments and scientific community world
over to look for suitable alternative fuels. During the last
decade the use of alternative fuels for diesel engines has
received renewed attention. It is important to explore the
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feasibility of substitution of diesel with an alternative fuel,
which can be produced within the country on a massive
scale for commercial utilization. As far as our country is
concerned, the need to search for alternative fuels is
more urgent, as India is heavily dependent upon the
import of crude oil to meet its demands for automotive,
agricultural and power sectors.
Moreover continuous utilization of fossil fuels have
been greatly polluting and thereby harming our
environment. One such alternative fuel for C I Engine
application is use of vegetable oils. Vegetable oils are
renewable, biodegradable and clean burning fuels.

Alternative Fuel for Internal combustion

Engine:
In this context, a few fuels that are gaining prominence
are as follows;
1. Biodiesels
2. Compressed Natural gas (CNG)
3. Biogas

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4. Producer gas
5. Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG)
6. Hydrogen
7. Alcohol fuels (Methanol and Ethanol)

1.2 Vegetable Oil Resources in India:

Research in this direction with vegetable oils has yielded
encouraging results. Vegetable oils present a very
promising alternative to diesel oil since they are
renewable and have similar properties. Many researchers
have studied the use of vegetable oils in diesel engines.
Vegetable oils offer almost the same power output with
slightly lower thermal efficiency when used in diesel
engine. Reduction of engine emissions is a major
research aspect in engine development with the
increasing concern on environmental protection and the
stringent exhaust gas regulation (EGR).
The alternative liquid fuels must be technically and
environmentally acceptable and economically
competitive. The prime liquid alternative fuels are
alcohols and vegetable oils. Both alcohols and vegetable
oils are derived from biomass i.e. from renewable fuel
compared to diesel fuel; vegetable oils have acceptable
heating value and ignition quality. Vegetable oil is a
triglyceride, which are esters of long chain fatty acids and
polyalcohol glycerol. Vegetable oils typically have large
molecules, with carbon, hydrogen and oxygen being
present. The typical molecular structures of diesel and

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vegetable oil are presented in Fig 1.1. Vegetable oils and
their methyl esters are such alternative renewable fuels
for compression ignition engines. Inherent properties of
vegetable oils make them suitable for use in diesel
engines solely with an acceptable loss in efficiency.
Vegetable oils have comparable energy density and
cetane number to mineral diesel. Vegetable oils are
considered as good alternatives to diesel as their
properties are close to diesel. Thus, they offer the
advantage of being able to be readily used in existing
diesel engines without any modifications. They have a
structure similar to diesel fuel, but differ in the type of
linkage of the chains and have a higher molecular mass
and viscosity. The presence of oxygen in vegetable oils
raises the stoichiometric fuel air ratio. The carbon residue
of vegetable oil is higher than diesel fuel.

DIESEL

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 Vegetable oil

Fig. 1.1 Typical molecular structure of diesel

and vegetable oil

1.3 Objectives of the study

• To prepare biodiesel from palm oil and sunflower oil
known as and determine its different properties.

• To test the flash point and fire point of biodiesel

• To test the viscosity of the biodiesel

• Compare the biodiesel with diesel

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CHAPTER 2
REVIEW OF LITERATURE
The internal combustion engine designed, built, and
demonstrated by Rudolf Diesel at the 1900 Paris World's
Fair ran on peanut oil. This was the product of his dream-
an efficient internal combustion engine, powered by
crude oil or even vegetable oil. He believed that the
engine that can be fed with vegetable oils would help
considerably in the development of agriculture in
countries, which use it. A lot of research work has been
done with neat vegetable oils and biodiesel blends.
Research on vegetable oils like Pongamia Pinnata and
rice Bran oil is done in various laboratories all over the
world.
For large scale production there are two steps that would
need to be taken for producing biodiesel on a large scale
— growing the feedstock, and processing them into
biodiesel. The main issue that is often contested is
whether or not we would be able to grow enough crops to
provide the vegetable oil (feedstock) for producing the
amount of biodiesel that would be required to completely
replace petroleum as a transportation fuel. So, that is the
main issue that will be addressed here. The point of this
article is not to argue that this approach is the only one
that makes sense, or that we should ignore other options.
Rather, the point is merely to look at one option for
producing biodiesel, and see if it would be capable of
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meeting our needs. For any biodiesel to succeed at
replacing a large quantity of petroleum, the yield of fuel
per acre needs to be as high as possible.

2.1 Properties of biodiesel

 Biodiesel fuel is reliable, renewable, biodegradable
and non-toxic.

 It contains practically no sulfur and substantially

reduces emissions of unburned hydrocarbon (HC),
carbon monoxide, sulfates, polycyclic aromatics and
particulate matter.

 It has fuel properties comparable to diesel and can

be used in standard diesel engines with minor or no
modifications at all.

 It can be produced from any kind of vegetable oil.

2.2 Advantages of BIODIESEL

 Biodiesel reduces carbon dioxide emissions, carbon
monoxide (CO) emissions, sulfur dioxide emissions,
hydrocarbons (HC) and other particulate matter (PM)
emissions.

 Biodiesel can be used in existing diesel engine with

few or no modifications.

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  Non-toxic and Biodegradable

 Biodiesel use helps to stabilize greenhouse gases.

When biodiesel is used in place of conventional diesel,

auto ignition, fuel consumption, power output, and engine
torque are relatively unaffected.

CHAPTER 3
EXPERIMENTAL SET UP
The present work involves the Transesterification
process to obtain vegetable oil biodiesel and
experimental investigations of properties of palm oil and
sunflower oil biodiesel.

3.1 Transesterification set up

The Transesterification set up consists of a 2 liter
capacity round bottom flask with three necks to it and
is placed in a water container for heating the oil [Fig
3.1]. A heater with temperature regulator was used for
heating the oil in the round bottom flask. A high speed
motor with a magnetic stirrer in the form of rotating
element was used for mixing the oil vigorously. In the
Transesterification process triglycerides of vegetable oil
react with methyl alcohol in the presence of a catalyst
(NAOH/KOH) to produce fatty acid ester and glycerol.

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 In this process 1000 ml of vegetable oil, 200 ml
methanol and 4 gm sodium hydroxide were taken in a
round bottom flask. All the contents were heated up to 70
0
C and stirred by the magnetic stirrer vigorously for one
hour when the ester formation begins. The mixture was
transferred to a separating funnel and allowed to settle
down under gravity for overnight. The upper layer in the
separating funnel forms the ester and the lower layer
being glycerol was removed from the mixture [Fig 3.3].
The separated ester was mixed with 250 gm of hot water
and allowed to settle under gravity for 24 hours. Water
washing removes the fatty acids and catalyst dissolved in
the lower layer and was separated [Fig 3.4].

Fig 3.1 Equipment for

Transesterification

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 Fig3.2 Methanol, Sodium hydroxide Sodium Sulfate
and Silica gel

Fig 3.3 Ester precipitation

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 Fig 3.4 Ester separation and biodiesel
washing

Pensky Marten apparatus

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 Red wood viscometer

Procedure to carry out testing of

viscosity of biodiesel:
1. Apparatus is cleaned and leveled
2. Oil is poured into the cup upto the mark.
3. Water is heated with the help of the heater.
4. When steady state is reached, a clean dry 50ml flask
is placed below the jet properly.
5. The ball valve is lifted and the stop watch is started
simultaneously.

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 6. Time taken for collecting 50cc of oil is noted down
and tabulated.

Procedure to carry out testing of Flash

and fire point of biodiesel:
1. Cup and accessories is well cleaned.
2. Cup is filled with oil upto the mark and thermometer
is inserted.
3. Heat is increased at a rate of 3-6degree/min with
continuous stirring at the rate of 1-2 rev/sec.
4. Test flame is brought near the cup surface for
observing the phenomenon.
5. Flash point is taken as the temperature when the
flash appears at any point to the surface of oil inside
the cup.
6. The temperature at which vapor burns continuously
for 5 second is noted down as the fire point.

CHAPTER 4
RESULT AND DISCUSSION

4.1 Viscosity of fuel

1. Palm oil Biodiesel

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Sl Temperatu Weight Weight of oil Weight Time taken
No. re of oil in of with jar of oil to collect
0
C empty `w2` grams `w -w ` 50c.c oil in
2 1
jar `t` seconds
`w1`
in grams
grams
1 45 73.7 116.7 43 40
2 48 73.7 114.2 40.5 39
3 51 73.7 113.9 40.2 37

Density Specific Kinemati Absolute Relativ

oil gravity c viscosity e
`ρ` in `S` viscosity in viscosit
gram/c. in centiPois y in %
c centiSto e
kes
0.86 0.88 6.1 5.2 7.19
0.81 0.88 5.7 4.6 7
0.80 0.88 5.2 4.16 6.65

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2. Sunflower oil

Sl Temperatu Weight Weight of oil Weight Time taken

No. re of oil in of with jar of oil to collect
0
C empty `w2` grams `w -w ` 50c.c oil in
2 1
jar
`w1`
in grams `t`seconds
grams
1 40 73.7 119.7 46 46
2 43 73.7 116.0 42.3 45
3 47 73.7 115.3 41.8 42

Density Specific Kinemati Absolute Relativ

oil gravity c viscosity e
`ρ` in `S` viscosity in viscosit
gram/c. in centiPois y in %
c centiSto e
kes
0.92 0.92 8.2 7.5 8.64
0.84 0.92 7.9 6.6 8.45
0.83 0.92 6.8 5.6 7.89

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4.2 Flash and Fire point of fuel

1. Palm oil Biodiesel

Sl Temperat Flash Fire

no. ure in 0C point point
1 90 ----- -----
2 100 ----- -----
3 110 ----- -----
4 120 ----- -----
5 130 ----- -----
6 140 ----- -----
7 150 ----- -----
8 160 ----- -----
9 162 YES -----
10 164 ----- -----
11 166 ----- -----
12 168 ----- -----
13 170 ----- -----
14 172 ----- YES
15 174 ----- -----

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 2. Sunflower oil biodiesel

Sl Temperat Flash Fire

no. ure in 0C point point
1 120 ----- -----
2 130 ----- -----
3 140 ----- -----
4 150 ----- -----
5 160 ----- -----
6 166 ----- -----
7 168 YES -----
8 170 ----- -----
9 172 ----- -----
10 174 ----- -----
11 176 ----- -----
12 178 ----- -----
13 180 ----- -----
14 182 ----- YES
15 184 ----- -----

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Formulae required:
1. Density of oil, ρ=(W2-W1)/50 in grams/c.c
2. Kinematic viscosity=0.0026*t-1.71/t in centistokes
3. Absolute viscosity= Kinematic viscosity*Density of oil
in centiPoise
4. Specific gravity of oil=S
5. Relative viscosity=S*t*100/535*0.915
Where,
ρ is density of oil.
W1 is weight of empty jar.
W2 is weight of jar with oil.
t is time taken to collect 50ml of oil.
S is specific gravity.

Specimen calculations:
1. Density of oil ρ=(W2-W1)/50=0.86 grams/c.c
2. Kinematic viscosity=0.0026*t-1.71/t = 6.1
centistokes
3. Absolute viscosity= Kinematic viscosity*Density of
oil=5.2 cpoise
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 4. Specific gravity of oil=S=0.88
5. Relative viscosity= S*t*100/535*0.915=7.19%

Comparison of diesel with the biodiesel

Properties Diesel Biodiesel Biodiesel

of of palm oil
sunflower
oil
Chemical C13H24 ----- -----
formula
Density 830 920 860
(Kg/m3)
Viscosity 4.95 8.2 6.1
(cSt)
Flash point 56 168 162
Fire point 66 182 172

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 CONCLUSION
Development of Experimental Hardware
 Necessary hardware developed for the
Transesterification of sunflower oil and palm oil was
adequate to meet the project work.

Transesterification of sunflower oil and palm

oil
 The quantity of catalyst and methyl alcohol used is
crucial for successful reaction. Washing is necessary
to drain away undesired contaminants in the
biodiesel. The biodiesel should be finally heated to
remove excess moisture.

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  The optimum values of the parameter that result in
highest biodiesel yield(98%) are 1% NaOH catalyst,
5:1 molar ratio of methyl alcohol, 60 minutes and
700C respectively.

Testing of Biodiesel
 The properties of biodiesel prepared by sunflower oil
and palm oil were comparable to that of standard
diesel. The viscosity of biodiesel is reduced almost
ten times from 42.24 centiStokes to 6.1 centiStokes
for palm oil and from 50 centipoise to 8.2 centiPoise
and also volatility is improved.

REFERENCES
1. N.R. Banapurmath and P.G. Tewari- "Comparative
Performance of some esters of edible and non-edible
oils in a compression ignition engine".15th ISME
International Conference on Advances in Mechanical
Engineering, March 18-20, 2008, Bhopal, M.P. India.
2. R K Malhotra, IOC R&D centre-Biodiesel as blending
component for diesel products.
3. Celeste Peltier-Transesterification, turning used
vegetable oil into clean burning biodiesel fuel.

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4. Altin Recep, Cetinkaya Selim, and Yucesu
Huseyin Serdar (2001)-The potential of using
vegetable oil fuels as fuel for diesel engines. Energy
Conversion and Management, 42, 529-538.
5. Hideki Fukuda, Akihiko Kondo and Hideo Noda
(2001)-Biodiesel fuel production by Transesterification
of oils. Cobe University Japan.
6. V. Lertsathapornsuk, P. Ruangying, R. Pairintra
and K.Krisnangkura Continuous Transesterification of
Vegetable Oils by Microwave irradiation. School of
Energy and Materials. King Mongkut's University of
Technology Thonburi, Bangkok, Thailand.
7. http://en.wikipedia.org
8. http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com

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