Development Of Software For Prediction Of Various Properties Of Fatty Acid Esters

Abstract

Fast depletion of natural resources has caused fuel prices to increase and thus consumers and entrepreneurs are looking for biofuels to reduce their dependence on fossil fuels. Biodiesel is now seen as a promising and sustainable alternative source of fuel. It is biodegradable and nontoxic has low emission when compared with the conventional fossil-based diesel fuel. In spite of it being environmentally compatible it has certain limitations, such as lower cloud point causes it to freeze at cold climatic conditions, while study of flash point is important for safety reasons, making it difficult to use it commercially. In the present work, various models for the prediction of various properties of biodesel such as cold flow properties, flash point, kinematic viscosity, density, cetane number have been studied and an attempt has been made to find out which model is accurate and consistent for prediction of that particular property. Cloud point, pour point, flash point, viscosity, and density of Jatropha, Karanja, and Palm biodiesel were studied using prediction models available in the literature. A detailed study on blend of these biodiesel’s with petroleum diesel was carried out, and the effect of blend ratio on the property has been studied and discussed. Using the experimental values obtained from experiments carried out with the equipments available in the laboratory, regression models have been proposed for the prediction of properties of these blends. A software using visual basic 6 has been developed for readily predicting various properties of pure biodiesel and blends of biodiesel with petroleum diesel.