Page 454 - Advances in Eco-Fuels for a Sustainable Environment

Eco friendly biofuels for 15

CI engine applications

B. Ashok, K. Nanthagopal
School of Mechanical Engineering, VIT University, Vellore, India

15.1 Introduction

Diesel and petrol have been the most commonly used automotive fuels for a very long
time. Both of these fuels are produced from fossils of prehistoric organisms and are
hence known as fossil fuels. They have finite resources that take several years to
replenish and are therefore nonrenewable in nature. The alarming rate of depletion
of fossil fuel resources and the toxic nature of exhaust emissions from conventional
diesel engines has led to the search for a novel alternate source of energy for use in
compression ignition engine applications. Diesel engines are the most common prime
movers in urban and rural territories all over the globe. This is especially true in the
agricultural sector for water systems as well as in the automobile sector because of its
high fuel to power conversion efficiency, high brake power, low fuel consumption,
and lower maintenance costs [1]. From Fig. 15.1, it is observed that the transportation
sector has the greatest share of the total world oil consumption and this has increased
by 42% from 1973 to 2014. This rapid increase in fuel consumption and the limited
nature of diesel reserves has driven researchers to work on finding alternate sources of
energy that are affordable, safe, clean, and sustainable in nature [3]. The emissions
from these fuels are one of the major concerns for environmental changes such as
global warming, adverse weather conditions, and changing rainfall patterns. The cli-
matic change our world is facing as the global temperature is rising every year is
mainly due to pollution occurring from industries and the transportation sector where
diesel engines are used extensively; this has forced researchers across the globe to
investigate alternate fuels for mitigating the same [1, 3, 4].
Research on renewable energy has turned out to be an imperative worldwide
because of the worries about the impacts of fossil fuel utilization on an unnatural envi-
ronmental change. The Kyoto Protocol dictated the nations that ratified it were to
decrease their greenhouse gas emission levels to under a certain specified limit within
a specified time period; this prompted many countries to promote the usage of biofuels
to effectively replace fossil fuels. The European Commission proposed a 90% reduc-
tion in tax for the use of biofuels and set a target for fuel suppliers to reduce the green-
house gas intensity of the EU fuel mixture by 6% by 2020 as compared to that of 2010.
Many countries have passed legislation that requires petrol and diesel fuel to contain a
certain percentage of biofuel. This legislation has driven global biodiesel production
6
3
to increase rapidly, reaching a level of 2.54 10 m /day in 2011 [5, 6]. Fuels derived
from organic sources have dual advantages of mitigating environmental pollution and
Advances in Eco-Fuels for a Sustainable Environment. https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-08-102728-8.00015-2
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