Influence of synthesized (green) cerium oxide nanoparticle with neem (Azadirachta indica) oil biofuel

Abstract

ABSTRACT. Energy demand increases day by day due to the present technological scenario and fossil fuels are also depleting gradually. Therefore, the necessity came into the researchers to identify an alternative renewable resource for compensating the energy demand. The biodiesel appeared to the researchers as an important resource due to its characteristics and ability to compensate for the energy demand. However, some additional improvements are required for the efficient performance of the biodiesel, such improvement is achievable by the blending of an efficient additive with the biodiesel. The present study predominantly focuses to investigate the performance of the biodiesel with two different additives such as cerium oxide nanoparticles and ethanol. The neem (Azadirachta indica) oil has been selected as feed stock. The cerium oxide nanoparticles are prepared using the green synthesis process. Four various fuel samples are prepared to examine the effect of additives, (i) PB (pure biodiesel), (ii) BCe (PB+100 ppm CeO2), (iii) BE (90% biodiesel+10% ethanol) and (iv) BCeE (90% biodiesel+100 ppm CeO2+10% ethanol). From the experimentation, it is observed that the fuel BCeE achieves the better performance due to the oxygen buffering characteristics and improvement in the atomization by the additives.   KEY WORDS: Additives, Nanoparticles, Neem oil, Emission, Combustion, Heat release rate   Bull. Chem. Soc. Ethiop. 2023, 37(2), 477-490.                                                                DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.4314/bcse.v37i2.16