Making biodiesel more environmentally friendly

Storing biodiesel for a long time causes its quality to deteriorate and chemicals in the biodiesel to become oxidized. Preventing the oxidation of biodiesel with better compounds could make the fuel safer for humans and the environment, especially when it is used on a large scale.

Pandey and Murugan discovered that an antioxidant extracted from a leaf decreased nitrous oxide emissions and improved the performance of a common biodiesel/diesel fuel blend.

The team found that adding natural antioxidant powder derived from the leaf of a common tropical plant, Albizia lebbeck, to JME20 fuel reduced nitrous oxide emissions by up to 17 percent, reduced ignition delay by over 26 percent, and increased the combustion duration of the fuel by over 10 percent.

“Earlier research work on the use of JME20 in single cylinder diesel engine shows higher nitrous oxide emission. So, in this research work, we have focused on nitrous oxide mitigation by adding antioxidant,” co-author Krishna Pandey said. “This research work significantly reduces nitrous oxide emission from engine exhaust.”

To extract the antioxidant from Albizia lebbeck leaves, the authors washed, dried, crushed, and separated the resulting powder, mixing it with ethanol and acetone for purification. After heating and drying the powder, they ultrasonicated the powder in the biodiesel/diesel fuel blend. This “doped” fuel was then placed into a low-heat rejection diesel engine and tested.

Pandey says the authors can further reduce nitrous gas oxide through exhaust gas recirculation.

Source: “Albizia lebbeck leaf extracted natural antioxidant doped biodiesel-diesel blend in low heat rejection diesel engine,” by Krishna Kumar Pandey and S. Murugan, Journal of Renewable and Sustainable Energy (2023). The article can be accessed at https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0107664 .