Emissions and fuel consumption characteristics of a heavy duty diesel engine fueled with Hydroprocessed Renewable Diesel and Biodiesel

Renewable biofuels such as Hydroprocessed Renewable Diesel (HRD) and Biodiesel (B100) are perceived as potential alternative fuels for compression ignition (CI) engine. HRD and B100 are produced from the same feedstock i.e. Jatrophacurcas oil by transesterification and hydro-deoxygenation reactions respectively. Petro-diesel served as a reference fuel. The main objective of this study is to identify a better alternative fuel among HRD and B100 in terms of emissions and fuel consumption characteristics. The C-H-O based lubricity additive was added in HRD to give adequate lubricity to fuel injection pump. Both biofuels showed substantial reduction in particulate matter (PM), carbon monoxide (CO) and hydrocarbon (FIC) emissions as compared to petro-diesel. But NOx increased by 26% for HRD and 77% in the case of B100 fueled engine. Brake specific fuel consumption (BSFC) of the engine fueled with HRD was lower than with B100 and petro-diesel. A comparative analysis of emission results revealed that the engine fueled with B100 performed well on many counts such as PM, CO and HC, but the HRD outperformed B100 in terms of NOx emission and BSFC, which are vital parameters for Cl engines. Hence, HRD may be considered as a promising alternative fuel for CI engines over other transesterified biodiesels. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.