VEGETABLE-OILS AS FUELS FOR INTERNAL-COMBUSTION ENGINES - A REVIEW

The search for renewable fuel sources is being made universally and this includes alternative fuels for internal combustion engines. Vegetable oil has been suggested and tested as one of the alternatives for conventional engine fuels; it would help to extend the life of fast-depleting petroleum reserves. A comprehensive review is attempted in this paper of the work available in the literature on the use of vegetable oil as fuel for stationary compression ignition engines. Individual vegetable oils are reviewed separately and a comparative survey is presented. Generally short-term engine tests have been successful with vegetable oil; long-term tests have exposed the fuel’s limitations with respect to lubricant contamination, deposits on engine surfaces and injection problems, which adversely affected engine durability and performance in the long term. Transesterification of some of the oils is reported to have improved the long-term performance. Pure vegetable oil and different blends with diesel oil have been employed as engine fuels for comparative performance studies and the best mixes sought for different oils. The available information indicates that sunflower, soybean and rapeseed oil look to be the most promising among the vegetable oils reviewed. © 1994 Silsoe Research Institute.