Emulsifaction of waste cooking oils and fatty acid distillates as diesel engine fuel

The scope of this paper is to analyze the possibilities and feasibilities, as well as the main experimental results reported about the emulsification method applied to waste cooking oils and fatty acid distillates as diesel engine fuels, compared with other commonly used methods. These waste products are obtained in the refining oil industry, food industry and service sector from the frying process, mainly. However, they are a little used as feedstocks to produce biofuels and constitute a potential source of contamination. From the review of the state of arts, significant decreases in exhaust emissions of nitrogen oxides, cylinder pressure, as well as increases of the ignition delay, brake specific fuel consumption, hydrocarbon, smoke opacity, carbon monoxide, particulate matters to emulsified waste cooking oils and fatty acid distillates compared with diesel fuel are reported. In some experiments the emulsified waste cooking oils achieved better performance than neat fatty acid distillates, neat waste cooking oils and their derivates methyl esters.