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The present study was aimed to run the diesel engine only with two renewable fuels in a dual fuel mode. The karanja methyl ester (KME) derived from karanja oil was used as an injected fuel, and the biogas obtained from the anaerobic digestion of pongamia pinnata (Karanja) de-oiled cakes, was used as a secondary fuel in a single cylinder, four stroke, air cooled, direct injection (DI) diesel engine. Four different flow rates of biogas, viz., 0.3 kg/h, 0.6 kg/h, 0.9 kg/h and 1.2 kg/h were inducted along with the air in the suction of the engine. The results of the experiment were compared with those of diesel and KME operations. Biogas inducted at a flow rate of 0.9 kg/h was found to be the best among all the flow rates, in terms of the performance and emission of the engine. The dual fuel operation showed a higher BSEC than that of diesel operation at full load. In dual fuel operation, about 22% of KME replacement was possible with the biogas flow rate of 0.9 kg/h at full load.

The awareness on the use of biofuels is increasing day by day among the public throughout the world, because of their merits over petroleum fuels. Biogas is a clean, cheaper and eco-friendly fuel. It can be produced from any organic digestive material. In the present research work, biogas was produced by anaerobic digestion of de-oiled cakes obtained from an oil crushing unit. Further, the biogas was used as an alternative fuel in a direct injection (DI) diesel engine on dual fuel mode. Diesel was used as a pilot fuel while, biogas was inducted at different flow rates of 0.15kg/h, 0.3kg/h, 0.45kg/h and 0.6kg/h along with the inducted air through the intake manifold. The performance and the emission characteristics of the engine were studied. The dual fuel mode operation showed a higher BSEC than that of single fuel mode. Also, 30% diesel consumption was replaced by biogas in dual fuel mode. The dual fuel mode emission showed 16% and 21% increment in the CO and HC emissions.