Effects Of Oxygenates On Neem And Tigernut Oil Methyl Ester

Abstract

Biodiesel is a biodegradable, environment friendly, renewable and energy efficiency fuel. It is becoming the most prominent alternative to petro-diesel. Due to current environmental concerns, quality and properties of biodiesel have to be optimized to remove its limitations. The use of oxygenates additives have proved to play such important role. The purpose of this research work was to compare the effects of oxygenates on biodiesel properties such as viscosity, heat content, density, specific gravity, and flash point, pour and cloud point. Tiger and neem oil were extracted from tiger and neem seed and were used to produce biodiesel. The properties of produced biodiesel were studied and compared to ASTM standards. Oxygenates additives (methanol, ethanol and diethyl ether) were added to the biodiesel at different ratios (10%, 20% and 30%) to study their effect on the quality of biodiesel produced. The kinematic viscosity of pure Neem Oil Methyl ester (NOME) and Tiger oil Methyl Ester (TOME) at 400C were found to be 5.582mm2 s -1 and 4.317mm2 s -1 respectively. The lowest value of kinematic viscosity was seen to be 1.582mm2 s -1 for NOME70:30DE and 1.5537mm2 s -1 for TOME70:30 DE. The densities of the blends biodiesel were found to be in range of 0.82932- 0.8783g/ml. The heat content and flash point of biodiesel blends were also studied in the experiment. We observed that blending biodiesel with oxygenates can be a very good way to improve the quality and properties of biodiesel.