Study On Production Process And Emission Performance Of Castor Oil Biodiesel

With the fossil energy crisis and air pollution becoming more serious, finding new andclean energy becomes the research hotspot in current energy field. As a green and renewableenergy, biodiesel has been developing rapidly in the whole world. Selecting castor oil andmethanol as raw materials, KOH as catalyst, biodiesel was got as the product viatransesterification in this paper. Production process, composition, physicochemical propertiesand emission characteristics of castor-oil biodiesel are studied in this topic.After comparing tests, the optimum process was got as followings: molar rate ofmethanol to castor oil,6:1; reaction time,55~60min; temperature,62~64℃;1.0%of catalystconcentration; the yield of transesterification reached94%.Tested by GC-MS, the cator-oil biodiesel were composited by ricinoleic methyl ester,methyl hexadecanoate, oatadecenoic acid methyl ester and hexadecanoate doluted acid methylester, and the content of ricinoleic methyl ester was over81.92%.Physicochemical properties were studied in this paper: Flashpoint,143℃, higher thanthat of fossil diesiel, making the biodiesel convenient to be transported and stored; Acid value,0.3077mg(KOH)/g, lower than general biodiesels, making the engine nozzles not easy to becorroded; The low-temperature mobility of biodiesel is somewhat less than that of fossilediesel, therefore, magnetization, ultrasonic treatment, mixing pouring point depressant wereadopted to reduce the viscosity of biodiesel. Magnetization and ultrasonic treatment weretime-sensitive, comprehensive viscosity reduction was7.88%. In the mixing process, density,kinematic viscosity became lower with the increasing proportion of biodiesel; Pouring pointdepressant could lower solidification point, but not significant to cold filter plugging point.Without any change to diesel engine, Engine Bench Test was carrid out, and part-load(2200r/min) characteristics, exhaust composition, and smoke grade were got for castor-oilbiodiesel and its mixture with0#diesel. The results indicated the power performance showeda decline trend, wherever the fuel consumption rate increasing trend with the increasement ofcastor-oil biodiel proportion. The relationship between mixing rate of biodiesel and fuelconsumption rate was B100>B25>B20>B15>B0. The fuel consumption rate of B20washigher than B0by average5.9%. For LN490engine, each mixture fuels reached theireconomic fuel consumption rate between the power of32kW~36kW.