Applied Energy 87 (2010) 786790

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Applied Energy
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/apenergy

Performance and emission evaluation of a CI engine fueled with preheated

raw rapeseed oil (RRO)diesel blends
Hanbey Hazar a,*, Hseyin Aydin b
a
b

Department of Automotive, Faculty of Technical Education, Firat University, Elazg 23119, Turkey
Department of Automotive, Faculty of Technical Education, Batman University, Batman 72060, Turkey

a r t i c l e

i n f o

Article history:
Received 9 January 2009
Received in revised form 30 April 2009
Accepted 14 May 2009
Available online 5 June 2009
Keywords:
Diesel engine
Preheating
Rapeseed oil
Engine performance
Emissions

a b s t r a c t
Many studies are still being carried out to nd out surplus information about how vegetable based oils
can efciently be used in compression ignition engines. Raw rapeseed oil (RRO) was used as blended with
diesel fuel (DF) by 50% oil50% diesel fuel in volume (O50) also as blended with diesel fuel by 20% oil80%
diesel fuel in volume (O20). The test fuels were used in a single cylinder, four stroke, naturally aspirated,
direct injection compression ignition engine. The effects of fuel preheating to 100 C on the engine performance and emission characteristics of a CI engine fueled with rapeseed oil diesel blends were claried.
Results showed that preheating of RRO was lowered RROs viscosity and provided smooth fuel ow Heating is necessary for smooth ow and to avoid fuel lter clogging. It can be achieved by heating RRO to
100 C. It can also be concluded that preheating of the fuel have some positive effects on engine performance and emissions when operating with vegetable oil.
2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
In a compression ignition engine, the study of spray injection
and the evaporating characteristics of fuels are important for optimizing fuel injection and combustion processes to improve engine
efciency and achieve lower exhaust emissions with vegetable oilfueled engines.
According to McDonnell et al. [1], the physical properties of a liquid fuel that affect its atomization in a diesel engine are viscosity,
density and surface tension. For a DI diesel injector at xed operating condition, use of fuel with higher viscosity delays atomization.
Poor atomization has negative effects on combustion process.
Fuel type, quality and characteristics have a vital role in meeting current and future standards. Also, a preheating-based engine
control improves the engine performance, and therefore exhausts
emissions when vegetable oil is used in diesel engines.
From previous studies [213], it is evident that various problems are associated with vegetable oils being used as fuel in diesel
engines due to the high viscosity, high density and poor non-volatility, which lead to problems in pumping, atomization and poor
combustion inside the combustion chamber of a diesel engine in
long term.
Therefore, vegetable oils cannot be used directly in diesel engines at room temperature. In order to reduce the viscosity of the
vegetable oils, three effective methods have been found; transesterication, mixing with lighter oil and heating [14].
* Corresponding author. Tel.: +90 424 2370000x4349.
E-mail address: hanbeyhazar@hotmail.com (H. Hazar).
0306-2619/$ - see front matter 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.apenergy.2009.05.021

The transesterication is an extensive, convenient and most

promising method for reduction of viscosity and density of vegetable oils [1520]. However, rapeseed oil methyl ester (RME) mixing
with diesel fuel reduces the caloric value of the fuel blend. That
may result in engine power losses and increase in brake specic
fuel consumption (Bsfc) [2123].
Major disadvantage of vegetable oil is its viscosity, which is
considerably higher than that of mineral diesel [24]. Because of
high viscosity and low volatility of vegetable oils the brake thermal
efciency of vegetable oils is inferior to that of diesel. This leads to
problems of high smoke, HC and CO emissions [25]. The preheating
of inlet fuel reduces viscosity and can be implemented as indicated
by the results of many studies.
Prasad et al. [26] reported that heating was one of the effective
methods to utilize vegetable oils as fuels. They declared a decrease
in the specic energy consumption and smoke emissions and an
increase in NOx emission were observed with preheated vegetable
oil operation.
Barsic et al. [27] investigated performance and emissions characteristics of crude soybean oil, a 50% (by volume) mixture of crude
soybean oil and DF diesel fuels. The data were compared with
crude sunower oil and a 50% mixture of crude sunower oil and
DF fuel and indicated that it was essential to preheat the vegetable
oil to 7090 C to resolve the fuel lter clogging problem.
Ryan and his co-workers [28] have specied a fuel inlet temperature of 140 C for acceptable viscosity when using vegetable as
fuel in both direct injection and indirect injection engines.
Bari et al. [29] have showed that preheating of raw palm to
60 C is essential to lower its viscosity, ensure smooth ow and

787

H. Hazar, H. Aydin / Applied Energy 87 (2010) 786790

avoid fuel lter clogging. It was also indicated that the injection
system was not affected even by heating to 100 C.
It was also concluded from the results of an experimental investigation [30] that the waste frying oil preheated to 135 C could be
used as a diesel fuel substitute for short-term engine operation.
The purpose of this work is to investigate the effect of preheating of RROdiesel fuel blends on the engine performance and emission characteristics of a CI engine.

35

DF
O20

30

Viscosity (mm 2.s-1)

O50

2. Materials and methods

25

RRO

20
15
10
5

In this study, a compression ignition engine was operated with

DF, in two different fuel blends: 20% rapeseed oil80% diesel fuel
(O20) and 50% rapeseed oil50% diesel fuel (O50) in volume to
clarify the effects of preheated fuel on engine torque, brake power,
mass fuel consumption rate, brake specic fuel consumption (Bsfc),
brake thermal efciency, exhaust gas temperature, NOx emission,
smoke density and CO emissions of the test engine. The experimental data are documented and presented here using appropriate
graphs. The tests aimed to use higher percentages of raw rapeseed
oil in direct injection diesel engine. With this reason O20 and O50
fuels were used. Some of the properties of the DF, raw RRO, O20
and O50 dieseloil blends are presented in Table 1. The blends
were heated to 100 C to reduce viscosity. The optimal values of
viscosity and density were obtained at about 100 C for both O50
and O20 fuel blends. The density was not negatively affected. If
the selected temperature was higher than 100 C the density of
the fuel would be reduced also spray characteristics would negatively be affected. Therefore the optimum performance of the engine was at 100 C.
The viscosity variations of test fuels with temperature are
shown in Fig. 1. It can be seen from this gure that the viscosities
of RRO and blends reduced rapidly with temperature when compared to diesel fuel.
Rainbow-186 type, single-cylinder, four-stroke, air cooled, naturally aspired direct injection diesel engine was used. The basic
specications of the engine are shown in Table 2. The engine was
equipped with a mechanical-PF type fuel pump. The fuel injector
has three holes with an opening pressure of 196 bars. The engine
was connected to hydraulic dynamometer. A schematic diagram
of the engine setup is shown in Fig. 2.
The test was started rstly with diesel fuel and when the engine
reached the operating temperature, it was loaded with a hydraulic
dynamometer. The engine was loaded at wide open accelerator position, and run at four different speeds: 1000, 1500, 2000, and
2500 rpm. The speed and load were recorded from digital indicator
of the test ring. The load on the dynamometer was measured by
using a strain gauge load sensor. Inductive pickup speed sensor
was used to measure the speed of the engine. The fuel consumption was measured with a burette with 50 and 100 ml volumes
and a stopwatch. The mass ow rate (kg/h) was calculated from
volumetric ow rate and fuel density. The exhaust temperature
was measured using a thermocouple located downstream of the
exhaust valve. CO and NOx emission tests were made by DRAGER
MSI COMPACT 150 type emission analyzer. The device can measure

0
40

50

60

70

80

90

100

Temperature ( o C)
Fig. 1. Effect of temperature on viscosity of RRO, blends and diesel.

Table 2
Some technical specications of the test engine.
Type

Rainbow186 diesel

Injection system
Cylinder number
Stroke volume
Compression ratio
Maximum power
Maximum engine speed
Cooling system
Injection pressure
Mean effective pressure (Mep)
Medium piston speed

Direct injection
1
406 cc
18/1
10 HP
3600 rpm 20
Air cooling
19.6 0.49 MPa (200 5 kgf/cm2)
561.6 kPa
7.0 m/s (at 3000 rpm)

CO, and NOx as ppm with 0.005% accuracy. The measurement of

smoke density of the engine was carried out with the smoke-meter
SUN ASA 200.
3. Results and discussions
3.1. Performance results
Fig. 3 shows the variation of torque with engine speed for preheated test fuels. As can be seen from the gure, the torque was almost not affected with preheating. As expected there is slight
increase in torque with the increase in temperature. The average
torque differences with preheating temperature were 1.2%, 0.8%
and 0.14% for DF, O20 and O50, respectively.
The power variation with preheated DF, O20 and O50 fuels was
illustrated in Fig. 4. In which the output power of DF is higher than
those of both O20 and O50 for all engine operations either with
preheating or not, since the DF fuel has higher caloric value than
those of both O20 and O50 blends. The power for DF increased
while the similar trends were observed with the use of O20 and
O50 fuel. The increment of RRO for the blends remained lower
when compared with that of DF since the viscosity of the blend

Table 1
Technical properties of DF, RRO, O20 and O50 oildiesel blends.
Fuel

Heating value (kJ kg

ASTM test no
RRO
DF
O20
O50

D2015
40112
42940
42150
41630

Density (g cm
D1298
0.903
0.843
0.868
0.882

) (15 C)

Flash point (C)

Viscosity (mm2 s

D93
234
68
86
122

D445
31.23
3.66
8.26
15.64

) (40 C)

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H. Hazar, H. Aydin / Applied Energy 87 (2010) 786790

Fig. 2. Schematics of diesel test engine and setup: (1) engine chassis, (2) exhaust gas analyzer, (3) exhaust gas analyzing probe, (4) single cylinder diesel engine, (5) load cell,
(6) dynamometer, (7) tachometer, (8) control unit, (9) fuel burette and (10) fuel container.

reducing with preheating led to the higher leakages in the pump

and injector resulting in lower power outputs. In spite of the fact
that the heating values of the rapeseeddiesel blends were fairly
lower than those of diesel fuel, power output for all test fuels were
not far different from one another. The similar trend was almost

39

Brake Torque (Nm)

37
35
33
31
29
27
25
1000

DF
O20
O50
DF(Pre-heated)
O20(Pre-heated)
O50(Pre-heated)
1500

2000

2500

Engine speed (rpm)

Fig. 3. The torque variation with preheated DF, O20 and O50 mixtures.

Brake Power (KW)

9
8
7

DF
O20
O50
DF(Pre-heated)
O20(Pre-heated)
O50(Pre-heated)

1300
1100

Bsfc (g/kWh)

10

6
5
4
3
2
1000

observed in all speeds and conditions. The main reasons are that;
The lower heating values of rapeseed oil were compensated with
fairly higher rates of fuel consumption to obtain the same amount
of power, The higher viscosity, which reduces the back ow across
the piston clearance of the injection pump, The higher lubricity of
oil could also reduce friction loss and may lead to an increase in
brake effective power. The comparison of the brake specic fuel
consumption preheated O20, O50 blends and DF is presented in
Fig. 5. When compared with literature, the reason for high Bsfc
can be attributed to test condition since tests were made at wide
open accelerator position and at high load engine run. The preheating process signicantly effected Bsfc for all fuels especially at the
lower running speeds of engine. The highest value of decreased
Bsfc was observed with the use of O50 blend. The average Bsfcs
decreased approximately 9.12%, 8.16% and 9.64% for DF, O20 and
O50, respectively. Several reasons for such decrease in Bsfc can
be presented; the more preheated fuel into the cylinder the more
atomization and pulverization the smaller particles of the fuel to
be injected into the cylinder. This led to more utilization of the fuel
through more complete and in-cylinder combustion. Also, the
brake power of engine increased as the fuel consumption rate decreased leading to decreased Bsfc. The lowest Bsfc was obtained
with the use of preheated diesel fuel. This is due to the combined
effect of lower viscosity and higher caloric value of the DF than
those of RRO-diesel blends.

DF
O20
O50
DF(Pre-heated)
O20(Pre-heated)
O50(Pre-heated)

900
700
500
300

1500

2000

2500

Engine speed (rpm )

Fig. 4. The power variation with preheated DF, O20 and O50 mixtures.

100
1000

1500

2000

2500

Engine speed (rpm)

Fig. 5. The Bsfc variation with preheated diesel fuel, O20 and O50 mixtures.

789

H. Hazar, H. Aydin / Applied Energy 87 (2010) 786790

The fuel consumption rates for the test fuels decreased when
the fuel was preheated, as illustrated in Fig. 6. Some of the reasons
mentioned above for decreased Bsfc can also be responsible for
explaining the decrease in mass fuel consumption with preheating.
With preheating, the mass fuel consumption decreased around
5.14%, 7.25% and 5.18% for diesel, O20 and O50, respectively. However, in all test and conditions, the mass fuel consumption rates for
blends were higher than that of DF. The loss of heating value of
RRO is compensated with higher fuel consumption to maintain
the similar trend of power. Thus, the forementioned increase in
fuel consumption was not caused by any loss in thermal efciency
but rather by the reduced heating value of oil.
The variation of exhaust gas temperature for tests with DF, O20
and O50 fuels in case of preheating are shown in Fig. 7. With preheating of the fuel, the exhaust gas temperatures did not signicantly reduce for all the test fuels. The exhaust gas temperature
for O50 showed a fairly higher trend when compared with O20
and DF, as RRO contains constituents of poor volatility, which burn
only during the late combustion phase. It can be mainly due to delayed combustion.
3.2. Emission results
The highest NOx emission takes place at 2000 rpm unexpectedly
instead of 2500 rpm. It can be attributed to the very short combustion time at 2500 rpm. That is, the time for complete combustion

6
5

DF
O20
O50
DF(Pre-heated)
O20(Pre-heated)
O50(Pre-heated)

180
160
140

NOx (ppm)

Fuel Consumption rate (Kg/h)

was not sufcient at 2500 rpm in comparison to 2000 rpm even

though the cylinder temperature was higher at 2500 rpm. Fig. 8
indicates that the NOx emission was lowered with the substitution
of RRO as fuel. This positive trend may be due to the lower peak
combustion temperature as a result of the lower heat content of
RRO. Fig. 8 also shows that the NOx emission increases with the increase in the fuel inlet temperature. The average NOx emission was
increased by 19%, 18% and 15% using DF, O20 and O50, respectively. The increase in NOx with preheating emission may be attributed to the increase in the combustion gas temperature with an
increase in fuel inlet temperature. Fig. 9 shows the effect of preheating on CO emission. CO emission of RRO blends was not sufciently lower than those of DF. The CO decrement was also
remained lower with blends. This trend may be due to the high viscosity of the RRO, which causes poor spray characteristics, forming
locally rich airfuel mixtures during the combustion process thus
leading to CO formation. CO emission was decreased for all test
fuels with preheating due to the improvement in spray characteristics and better airfuel mixing. When preheated, CO emissions
were decreased by 20.59%, 16.67% and 25.86% for DF, O20 and
O50, respectively.
It is seen that the smoke emission for RRO blends was higher
than DF. This may be due to the higher viscosity and poor volatility
of RRO blends. Even though O50 has a higher viscosity, the smoke
density of O50 was observed higher in comparison to O20. It can be
explained with additional oxygen content of O50 promoting the

4
3

100
80
DF
O20
O50
DF(Pre-heated)
O20(Pre-heated)
O50(Pre-heated)

60
40

2
1
1000

120

20
1500

2000

0
1000

2500

Engine speed (rpm)

1500

2000

2500

Engine speed (rpm)

Fig. 6. The fuel consumption variation with preheated diesel fuel, O20 and O50
mixtures.

700
600

DF
O20
O50
DF(Pre-heated)
O20(Pre-heated)
O50(Pre-heated)

1.20
1.00

500

CO (%)

Exhaust gas temperature ( C)

800

Fig. 8. The effect of preheating on NOx emissions of RRO blends and DF.

400
300

0.80
0.60
0.40

200
100
1000

DF
O20
O50
DF(Pre-heated)
O20(Pre-heated)
O50(Pre-heated)

1500
2000
Engine speed (rpm)

2500

0.20
1000

1500

2000

2500

Engine speed (rpm)

Fig. 7. The exhaust gas temperature variation with preheated diesel fuel, O20 and
O50 mixtures.

Fig. 9. The effect of preheating on CO emissions of RRO blends and DF.

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H. Hazar, H. Aydin / Applied Energy 87 (2010) 786790

80

Smoke density (%)

70
60

References

DF
O20
O50
DF(Pre-heated)
O20(Pre-heated)
O50(Pre-heated)

50
40
30
20
1000

1500

2000

2500

Engine speed (rpm)

Fig. 10. The effect of preheating on smoke density of RRO blends and diesel fuel.

oxidation of the already formed soot thus resulting in lower smoke

density. Fig. 10 shows that the smoke emissions for all test fuels
decrease with the preheating. The most sufcient decreases were
observed for rapeseed oil blends. The lowest smoke densities were
obtained with preheated O50 and O20. The average smoke densities were decreased by 9.4%, 20.1% and 26.3% for DF, O20 and
O50, respectively. This may be due to the reduction in viscosity
and subsequent improvement in spray, fuelair mixing and combustion characteristics by preheating. Because the local factors
such as temperature, pressure, mixture ratio and oxygen content
in the combustion chamber affect combustion and its sustainability in the internal combustion engines, it is seen clearly that preheating improved these local factors.

4. Conclusions
The power increment for the blends remains lower when compared with that of diesel fuel since the viscosity of the blend reduced with preheating leads to the higher leakages in the pump
and injector resulting lower power outputs. The preheating process
also considerably effects Bsfc for all fuels. The highest value of decreased Bsfc was observed with the use of O50 blend. The mass fuel
consumptions for the test fuels decreases when the fuel is preheated. However, with all test in all conditions, the mass fuel consumption rates for blends are higher than those of DF fuel since the
heating value of the RRO is fairly lower that of diesel. With preheating of the fuel, the exhaust gas temperatures do not signicantly reduce for all the test fuels. The exhaust gas temperature
for O50 is fairly higher when compared with O20 and diesel fuel.
The NOx emission lowers when RRO blends are used. The NOx
emissions are lower both for O20 and O50 fuels than that o diesel
fuel. Nevertheless, the NOx emissions for all test fuels including
diesel fuel increase when fuels are preheated. The CO emission decreased for all test fuels with preheating due to the improvement
in spray characteristics and better airfuel mixing. Smoke density
for all test fuels decreases with preheating. It can be concluded that
preheating test fuel slightly affects engine performance while it
signicantly reduces exhaust emissions when operating with vegetable oil. Besides, the viscosity of the vegetable oil can be reduced
by preheating the fuel in order to solve the problems associated
with high viscosity.

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