Effect of Diethyl Ether Additive on Reformulated Bio-Mix Blends from a Mixture of Different FEED Stock’s

• Published in: Waste and biomass valorization Vol. 14; no. 1; pp. 261 - 276
• Main Authors: Subhash, G. V., Sivapirakasam, S. P., Mohan, Sreejith, Subramanian, Nandakumar, Harisivasri Phanindra, K.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Dordrecht Springer Netherlands 2023; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Biodiesel fuels; Biofuels; Calorific value; Cetane number; Cooking; Cooking oils; Diesel; Diethyl ether; Engineering; Environment; Environmental Engineering/Biotechnology; Fatty acid composition; Fatty acids; Flash point; Fuel additives; Fuels; Gas chromatography; Industrial Pollution Prevention; Iodine; Mass spectrometry; Mass spectroscopy; Mixtures; Norms; Original Paper; Oxidation; Raw materials; Renewable and Green Energy; Stability analysis; Transesterification; Waste Management/Waste Technology; Diethyl ether additive; Properties of bio-mix fuel; Transesterification; Gas chromatography–mass spectrometry; Reformulated bio-mix
• ISSN: 1877-2641; 1877-265X
• DOI: 10.1007/s12649-022-01871-1

The current study focuses on the use of diethyl ether as a fuel additive to enhance the properties of bio-mixture test samples. In this research, the raw bio-mix oil was extracted from a mixture of various raw feedstocks of borassus flabellifer oil (non-edible) and waste cooking oil (edible) to obtain the optimum raw bio-mix blends based on their acid value. The optimum raw bio-mix fuels were converted to purified bio-mixture test fuel through a transesterification reaction process. Transesterified bio-mix samples were selected as optimum blends and mixed with 5% Diethyl ether for further investigations. The fatty acid composition of samples was identified using gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC–MS). The results of the study revealed that adding the diethyl ether additive to the bio-mix fuels could improve the fuel quality and meet the standards set forth by the Bureau of Indian standards, American standard for testing and material, European standards of test methods and norms when compared to all the individual biodiesel and bio-mix fuel samples. The experimental analysis also concluded that saturated fatty acids, oxidation stability, and cetane number were enhanced while flash point, viscosity, iodine number, density, free fatty acid and heating value were reduced as compared to individual non-edible biodiesel. From the experimental results, it was concluded that the addition of 5% diethyl ether into bio-mix fuel resulted in a significant enhancement of saturated fatty acid by 12.5 and 11.8% while unsaturated fatty acid decreased by 13.2 and 12.9% as compared to bio-mix blends without additive.
Graphical abstract