Performance, combustion, and emission of a diesel engine fueled with an eco‐friendly mixture of two biodiesel blends

Fast depletion and higher emissions of fossil fuels are posing problems to scientists across the globe. To overcome this, thorough research is needed to find out alternate renewable sources. Biodiesel is such a renewable, biodegradable, and innocuous fuel to meet this global need. Oil extracted from vegetable oil seeds is processed into biodiesel by the transesterification process. The experimental work is carried out to study the performance and emission characteristics of a single‐cylinder, air‐cooled diesel engine by using a mixture of two diverse biodiesels namely Pongamia and Mahua. The results indicate that at higher loads there is a reduction of smoke emission for the 100PM blend (50% Pongamia biodiesel and 50% Mahua biodiesel) along with a 4.4% reduction in brake thermal efficiency when compared to diesel. The smoke is reduced for 100PM by 78.4% and 70.8% and for 50D50PM (50% diesel and 25% each biodiesel) by 71% and 61% at higher loads. From the combustion analysis, it is found that peak cylinder pressure for 100PM and 50D50PM blends are higher when compared with diesel which may be due to the advanced start of injection and ignition of blends. Injection and ignition advance of the blends may be attributed to higher bulk modulus and higher cetane number of biodiesels.