Investigating the performance of biodiesel-diesel blend coupled with green-synthesized CaO nanorods for compression ignition engines

Present research shows that green preparation and application of calcium oxide nanorods (CaO NRs) boost the competence of the compression ignition (CI) engine and reduce detrimental emissions. CaO NRs were synthesized in an aqueous solution using the extract from Murraya Koenigii leaves and thoroughly analyzed with UV-Vis, Fourier transform infrared (FTIR), X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy-energy dispersive X-ray (SEM-EDX), and high-resolution transmission electron microscopy (TEM) analyses. The CaO NRs were uniformly distributed within biodiesel-diesel blends (BDs) and evaluated for brake thermal efficiency (BTE), brake specific fuel consumption (BSFC), exhaust gas temperature (EGT), smoke emissions, carbon monoxide, hydrocarbons in the exhaust, and blend fuel stability. The performance of CaO NRs embedded BDs, i.e., BDC50 and BDC100 (BD blended with 50 ppm and 100 ppm CaO NRs, respectively), was related to diesel (B0), biodiesel-diesel blends. The BDC100 showed improved BTE (3.32%) and minimized CO, HCs, and smoke emissions (25%, 24%, and 43.9%, respectively) than BD fuel. Further, the BSFC of BDC100 was 21.54% and 27.45% higher than BD and diesel, respectively. Moreover, BDC100 showed lower EGT (by 5.01%) and brake-specific CO emission (by 25%) than BD. The NOx emissions of BDC100 fuels were the lowest compared to pure diesel and BD. Thus, the CaO NRs embedded biodiesel-diesel blend indicated the potential for boosting CI engine fuel efficiency and reducing the environmental impact.