Study on Combustion Performances and Droplet Combustion Characteristics of Palm Oil Biodiesel Blends Fuel

The present work evaluates the performance, emissions, and flame characteristics of diesel fuel blended with 10%, 20%, and 30% organic palm oil-derived biodiesel using a burner test rig. Results revealed a significant lessening in CO and SO2 emissions with B30 but a slight increment in NOx emission. A downward trend in temperature profile with biodiesel proportion and upward trend with equivalence ratios were witnessed. For flame characteristic investigation, a timebased image-capturing method was applied using a high-speed camera to capture a photo of each burning droplet, and the burning time was recorded for collecting burning data. Results demonstrated that B30 is less sooty and has a more pronounced blue flame color than the other models. The burn duration of the B30 droplet drastically dropped by 1.15%, while its burn rate constantly increased by 1.44% in comparison to those droplets. Overall, B30 demonstrates potential to improve gaseous emissions and combustion performance.