Publications

Abstract : pThe highly unbalanced nature of bio-oil composition poses a serious threat in terms of storage and utilization of bio-oil as a viable fuel in engines. So it becomes inevitable to study the variations in physicochemical properties of the bio-oil during storage to value its chemical instability, for designing stabilization methodologies. The present study aims to investigate the effects of storage stability of bio-oil extracted from pyrolyzing Calophyllum inophyllum (CI) deoiled seed cake on the engine operating characteristics. The bio-oil is produced in a fixed bed reactor at 500nbsp;°C under the constant heating rate of 30nbsp;°C/min. All the stability analysis methods involve an accelerated aging procedure based on standards established by ASTM (D5304 and E2009) and European standard (EN 14112). Gas chromatography-mass spectrometry was employed to analytically characterize the unaged and aged bio-oil samples. The results clearly depict that stabilizing Calophyllum inophyllum bio-oil with 10{%} (w/w) methanol improved its stability than that of the unstabilized sample thereby reducing the aging rate of bio-oil to 0.04 and 0.13nbsp;cst/h for thermal and oxidative aging respectively. Engine testing of the bio-oil sample revealed that aged bio-oil samples deteriorated engine performance and increased emission levels at the exhaust. The oxidatively aged sample showed the lowest BTE (24.41{%}), the highest BSEC (20.14nbsp;MJ/kWh), CO (1.51{%}), HC (132nbsp;ppm), NOx (1098nbsp;ppm) and smoke opacity (34.8{%})./p