VISVESWARAIAH TECHNOLOGICAL UNIVERSITY, BELGAUM

“Application of biofuels in automotives ”

Submitted by
NAGARAJA
Reg.No. 3SL07ME411
Submitted in the partial fulfillment of the requirements for the award of the degree

BACHELOR OF ENGINEERING
In
MECHNICAL ENGINEERING
Under the Guidance of
Sri. H.R.DIWATE
Department Of Mechanical Engineering
S.L.N COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING
RAICHUR-584135
2009-2010
 ABSTRACT

 For the transport sector depending now for

100% on oil .
 Bio diesel is a renewable fuel comprised of
mono-alkyl esters of long chain fatty acids
manufactured from vegetable oils, animal fats
& recycled cooking oils.
 Bio diesel play important role in development
of energy policy.
 Pure bio diesel is bio degradable, non toxic &
essentially free from sulphur and aromatic
compounds.
 Bio diesel can be blended easily with petroleum
diesel in various proportions to create a bio
diesel blends.
 Blending balances the property difference with
conventional diesel, performance, emission
benefits and cost.
 CONTENTS
1. INTRODUCTION

2. BIO DIESEL - FUEL FOR AUTOMOTIVES

2.1 What is Bio-diesel?
2.2 How it is produced
2.3 Benefits of Bio-diesel

3. OTHER ALTERNATIVE FUELS FOR TRANSPORT

3.1 BIOETHANOL (BIO – ETOH)
3.2 BIO-ETBE (Bio-Ethyl Tertiary Butyl Ether)
3.3 BIOMETHANOL (BIO - MEOH)
3.4 BIO-MTBE (Bio-Methyl-Tertiary Butyl Ether)
3.5 AS (a mixture of ~ 60% methane and ~ 40% CO2)

4. CONCLUSION
 1. INTRODUCTION
 In the next 20 years the expected growth of the world economy will
increase the demand of oil, in particular for transport : from ~85
million barrels/day to the huge value of ~ 330 million barrels/day (8
times the Saudi-Arabian capacity).
 With the impending fossil energy crisis it has become necessary for us
to seek for alternative type of renewable fuels in order to keep our
automobiles on roads
 Alcohols have proved to be successful substitute fuels for S.I. engines
 Road and lab tests have shown that vegetable oils and their esters
(called bio-diesels) are suitable for operation of C.I. engines
without any major engine modification
 Diesel engines today require a clean burning, stable fuel that
performs well under a variety of operating conditions.
 Bio diesel is the only the alternative fuel that can be used directly in
any existing unmodified engine.
 Bio-diesel is renewable, & energy efficient, displaces petroleum
derived diesel fuel, non-toxic & biodegradable .
 Bio diesel can reduce tail-pipe emission including air toxics and
ultimately global warming .
 Why Bio-fuels?
Bio-fuels are being considered for combustion engines because
1.Fossil energy crisis is waiting to encroach the industrial and automotive
sector
2. Bio-fuels are renewable
3. Used in the existing engine designs without any major modification
4. Have physico-chemical properties compatible with engine
requirements
5. They are non-toxic, bio degradable and easy for storage, handling and
transportation
6. They can be produced from agricultural and recycled resources
7. With appropriate engine tune up with operating conditions the
exhaust emissions can be more moderate in addition to the absence
of SO2.
Table 1 gives a property comparison of various vegetable oils and esters with
diesel fuel.
Table2. Comparative properties of diesel – Honge oil blends.
2. BIO DIESEL - FUEL FOR AUTOMOTIVES

2.1 What is Bio-diesel?

 Bio-diesel is a replacement fuel that is manufactured from
vegetable oils, recycled cooking oils and animal fats.
 These oils are renewable.

 As per ASTM, bio-diesel is chemical composed of mono

alkyl ester as long chain fatty acids derived from vegetable
oils and recycled cooking oils and animal fats. Bl00
 Linseed oil, jathroph oil, sunflower oil, neem-oil are
commonly used oil for production of bio-diesel.
 2.2 How it is produced :
The fundamental procedures to produce
the ester from oils and fats are –

1. Base catalyst trans-esterification of oil with

methanol.
2. Directed acid catalyzed esterification of oil
with methanol.
3. Conversion of the oil to fatty acids, and then
to methyl esters with acid catalysts
Production of bio-diesel is usually done today using the base
catalyzed reaction, as it is most economic process
process uses a low temperature 38 deg C and pressure 1.3
bar, high conservation of 98% directly to bio-diesel
with no intermediate steps.
2.3 Benefits of Bio-diesel:
 Bio-diesel Displaces Imported Petroleum
1. The fossil fuel energy required to produce bio-diesel from
vegetable oil is only fraction a fraction (31%) of energy
contained in one liter of fuel
2. the Bio-diesel is energy efficient fuel, it can extend
petroleum supplies and supports for sound energy policy.
 Bio-diesel reduces emissions:
1. Bio-diesel reduces global warming gas such as carbon
dioxide (CO2)
2. The low emissions of bio diesel makes it an ideal fuel for
use in Marine areas, national parks, forests and heavily
polluted cities.
3. substituting bio-diesel for petroleum diesel reduces life
cycle CO2 emission by 78%. B20 reduces CO2 by
15.66%.3 Bio-diesel reduces tail-pipe particulate matter
(PM), hydrocarbon (HC) and carbon monoxide (CO)
emissions from most modern four-stroke CI engines.
 Bio-diesel is Easy to Use :
1. The biggest benefit of using bio-diesel is that it is easy to store.
2. In blends of B20 or less, it is literally a “drop-in” technology.
3. New equipments and no equipment modifications are necessary.
4. B20 can be stored in diesel fuel tanks and pumped with diesel
equipments.
 Drawbacks of Bio-diesel:
1. Bio-diesel contains 8% to 12.5% less energy per lit than typical
diesel. The difference in energy content can be noticeable if
B100 is used. As the Bio-diesel blend level is lowered, any
difference in energy content become diminished and blends of
B5 or less do not cause noticeable difference in performance
compared to diesel.
2. Unlike gasoline, petro-diesel and biodiesel can both start to
freeze or gel as the temperature gets colder.
3. Biodiesel has been shown to increase in NOx emissions in many
engines.
 Bio-diesel (B100) properties & various blends:
1. The considerations for storing handling, blending and using B100 are
very different than for B20 and lower bio-diesel blends.
2. B100 has physical and chemical properties (Table-3).
 Quality Specifications for Bio-diesel:
1. As with other ASTM fuel standards, ASTM D6751 is based on the physical and
chemical properties that are needed for safe and satisfactory diesel engine
operation
2. Table 4. ASTM fuel standards
B20 - 20% bio-diesel Blend:
B20 and Emissions – B20 reduces CO, PM, HC and air toxic
components. The NOx emission may vary depending on the source of
bio-diesel and some B20 blends may be NOx neutral.

B20 Cleaning Effect – B20 minimizes any cleaning effect or solvency

issue with accumulated sediments in tanks, although minor filter
plugging may be observed during initial weeks of B20 use.

B20 Material Compatibility – B20 indicates compatibility with all

existing clustomers in diesel fuel systems, even those that are sensitive to
higher blends such as nitrile rubber. B20 may degrade faster than
petrodiesel if oxidizing metals such as copper, bronze, brass or zinc are
in fueling systems. For frequent filter clogging, the fueling system
should be checked for these materials.
B20 and Lubricity – Blending bio-diesel into petrodiesel
at even low levels can increase the lubricity of diesel
fuel. Even 0.25% bio-diesel can significantly increase
fuel lubricity. The exact blending level required to
achieve adequate lubricity dpend on properties of
diesel.
B20 Stability – Compared to B100 data on the same
fuels, it appears that B20 may have a longer storage
life than B100. ASTM D4625 stability test data
suggested that most B20 can be stored for 8 to 12
months. It is recommended that B20 should be used
within 6 months. This is comparable with
recommendations of petro-diesel.
3. OTHER ALTERNATIVE FUELS FOR
TRANSPORT
Alternative Fuels can be subdivided in two categories:
1. New transport fuels derived from natural gas (or coal);
2. Biofuels (fuels derived from biological resources) having
large worldwide availability and being expected to become
competitive (in a longer term) with low environmental
impact.
3.1 BIOETHANOL (BIO - ETOH):
1. Is a colourless, liquid fuel with the chemical formula:
C2H5OH.
2. This biofuel is a refined product and it is a suitable transport
3. The incremental cost for mass-production of FFV is estimated
to be ~150€ which is much lower than for compressed natural
gas vehicles.
4. Bioethanol is 30% less energetic than gasoline).
3.2 BIO-ETBE (Bio-Ethyl Tertiary Butyl Ether):
1. Is a colourless, flammable, oxygenated hydrocarbon
with the chemical formula: C2 H5 OC4 H9.
2. This biofuel is produced by mixing bioethanol (48%
in volume) and tertiary butanol (or bioethanol with
iso butylene) and reacting them with heat over a
catalyst.
3. This biofuel (octane rating: 112) can be used in
existing gasoline engine without any modification
shows excellent performance and environmental
benefits replacing aromatics and benzene.
4. Bio-ETBE is acceptable for direct refinery blending
and for common pipeline transport
3.3 BIOMETHANOL (BIO - MEOH):
1. Might become a preferred fuel for fuel cell vehicles (with on
board hydrogen reforming) because of its high hydrogen
content.
2. Biomethanol(CH3OH) can be produced from bio-syn-gas,
mixtures of H2 and CO derived from biomass via a well -
known oxygen / allothermalgasification process, by steam
reforming of charcoal and subsequent process by catalytic
synthesis process of CO2 and H2.
3. At present, methanol is mostly produced from natural gas
(world production 27 mio t/year) with a conversion efficiency
of ~ 55%.
4. Biomethanol has in a longer term the economic potential of
substituting the methanol derived from natural gas.
5. Experiments of biomethanol direct synthesis by electrolysis of
supercritical CO2-water solution (over GA as catalist) show
positive results with a current efficiency of ~100%.
3.4 BIO-MTBE (Bio-Methyl-Tertiary Butyl
Ether):
Is similar to Bio-ETBE and obtained by mixing
biomethanol (36% in volume) and tertiary butanol with
heat over catalyst.

3.5 BIOGAS (a mixture of ~ 60% methane

and ~ 40% CO2):
1. Is produced mostly by anaerobic fermentation of very
humid biomass (livestock liquid manure, sludges,
wastes, etc...).
2. Small size plants are widely diffused in developing
countries (~ 10 mio units in China), large plants in
industrial countries for treatment of urban sludges or for
disposal of agroindustrial wastes
 4. CONCLUSION

 It is time for us to seriously think of some alternative renewable

fuels for substitution to our rapidly depleting petroleum reserves.
 Though the cost of these substitute fuels are not competitive as on
today, with suitable changes in the government policies and
subsidies these bio-fuels can be made available at reasonable costs
to the common man.
 Afforestation of such bio-fuel plants is therefore needed on a war
footing and the farmers and agriculturists must be given proper
incentives and financial support to grow them.
 It is expected that bio-fuels will take over the transport with a
smooth transition from fossil fuels until, in the far future, hydrogen
energy or fuel cells may become competitive.
 Alternative fuels are new transport energy carriers which show the
potential to substitute conventional fuels (gasoline-diesel).