Performance of Compression Ignition Engine with Coated Piston for Multiple Blends of Methyl Castor Oil

Fossil fuel is getting exhausted at a fast rate and contributes to high carbon monoxide emissions. Biodiesel, being environmentally friendly, has better performance than diesel. Castor oil is an easily available vegetable oil in India. But its high viscosity leads to blockage of the fuel lines. The amount of free fatty acid more than 1% leads to soap formation which necessitates the biodiesel production in a two step process. The first step of acid catalyzed esterification process reduces the free fatty acid content of castor oil to below 1%. The second step of transesterification process converts the preheated oil to castor biodiesel. This two step process gave a maximum yield of 90%.The methyl castor oil (biodiesel) is blended with diesel in different proportions on volume basis as 15:85 (B15), 25:75 (B25), and 35:65 (B35). These blended oils are used to run a single cylinder four stroke compression ignition engine with different coatings of pistons, to study and compare the engine performance and emission characteristics at different load conditions.