Combustion characteristics of biodiesel blended with Al₂O₃ and SiO₂ nanoparticles

This experiment study the effect of nanoparticles blended in biodiesel on combustion characteristic of single-cylinder four-stroke diesel engine. Biodiesel used in this experiment was palm oil methyl ester (POME) and nanoparticles used was aluminum oxide (Al₂O₃) and silicon dioxide (SiO₂). Both nanoparticles was dispersed in POME by using an ultrasonicator with the dosage of 50 ppm. The fuel was labelled as PS50 for POME + SiO₂ fuel blend and PA50 for POME+Al₂O₃ fuel blend. These fuel was tested with a YANMAR TF120M model diesel engine with load variation from zero engine load until 28 N.m engine load with constant engine speed at 1500 rpm. Results shows that peak pressure of PS50 fuel was higher than PA50 fuel at all engine loads operations and the significant difference was at zero load engine operations, where the difference was 2.89%. In addition, exhaust gas temperature of PS50 blend recorded also shows that it was lower than PA50 blend at all engine load operations by 2.71 %, 2.42 %, 3.47 %, 5.65 % and 4.12 %.