Assessment of thermodynamic performance of an IC engine using microalgae biodiesel at various ambient temperatures

The usage of biodiesel fuel is significantly increasing all over the world since fossil fuel reserves deplete day by day. In this study, diesel fuel and microalgae biodiesel (MAB) fuels were preferred for energy and exergy analyses of IC engine and the effect of the ambient (dead state) temperature was investigated. Five different temperatures (0 degrees C, 5 degrees C, 15 degrees C, 25 degrees C and 35 degrees C) were selected as dead state temperature for the engine performance test. For both diesel fuel and MAB fuel, the results of energy and exergy analyses of IC engine were evaluated and advantages and disadvantages of the fuels were revealed. Furthermore, thermoeconomic and exergoeconomic analyses were conducted for diesel and microalgae biodiesel. The results showed that the performance of MAB fuel showed similarity with diesel fuel. The energetic and exergetic efficiencies for the engine using diesel fuel were slightly higher than those of the engine using MAB fuel. With increasing the ambient temperature, the destruction exergy rate increased while both heat transfer exergy rate and exhaust exergy rate decreased. In addition, the thermoeconomic parameter ranged from 0.00056 to 0.00064 kW/$ as the exergoeconomic parameter changed from 0.00083 to 0.00088 kW/$ for the engine with diesel fuel usage. The usage of MAB fuel was better than the usage of diesel fuel for both thermoeconomic and exergoeconomic aspects.