Comparison of performance characteristics of agricultural tractor diesel engine operating on home and industrially produced biodiesel

Owing to unstable diesel fuel prices in the world market, many farmers have been looking for alternative fuels. Vegetable oils are one of the alternatives, which can be used as fuel in diesel engines either in the form of straight vegetable oil or in the form of biodiesel. This study aims to present experimental data by utilization of home and industrial biodiesel as fuel in an agricultural tractor diesel engine. The home biodiesel production was made from different vegetable oils (crude rapeseed, edible sunflower and waste oil) with the process of one-stage-based catalyzed transesterification. A commercially available agricultural tractor ZETOR 7745 was employed. Measurements were taken on the power take-off shaft by electrical dynamometer FROMENT XT200. According to the results, agricultural tractor diesel engine operating on home biodiesel fuels had better performance characteristics related to industrially produced biodiesel and similar to conventional diesel fuel. Copyright (C) 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.