Improvement of the cold flow characteristics of biodiesel containing dissolved polymer wastes using acetone

Mohammadi, Pouya; Tabatabaei, Meisam; Nikbakht, Ali M.; Esmaeili, Zahra

doi:10.18331/BRJ2015.1.1.6

Improvement of the cold flow characteristics of biodiesel containing dissolved polymer wastes using acetone

Document Type : Short Communication

Authors

Pouya Mohammadi ¹^{, 2}^{, 3}

Meisam Tabatabaei ¹

Ali M. Nikbakht ¹^{, 2}

Zahra Esmaeili ⁴

¹ Biofuel Research Team (BRTeam), Agricultural Biotechnology Research Institute of Iran (ABRII), P.O. Box: 31535-1897, Karaj, Iran.

² Department of Mechanical Engineering in Farm Machinery, Urmia University, P.O. Box: 165, Urmia, Iran.

³ Department of Automotive Engineering, Islamic Azad University, Eyven-e-Gharb Branch, Ilam, Iran.

⁴ Department of Mechanical Engineering in Farm Machinery, Khuzestan Ramin Agriculture and natural resources University, Khuzestan , Iran.

10.18331/BRJ2015.1.1.6

Abstract

Due to the fast fossil fuel depletion and at the same time global warming phenomenon anticipated for the next coming years, the necessity of developing alternative fuels e.g. biofuels (i.e. bioethanol, biodiesel, biogas and etc.) has turned into an important concern. Recently, the application of the bio-solvency properties of biodiesel for recycling waste polymers has been highlighted. However, the impact of polymer dissolution on cold flow characteristics of biodiesel was never investigated. The present study was set to explore the impact of different solvents in stabilizing biodiesel-polymer solution. Among them, acetone was proved to be the best fuel stabilizer. Subsequently, cold flow characteristic i.e. cloud point, of the biodiesel-polymer-acetone fuel was found to have improved (decreased) due to the inclusion of acetone. Finally, flash point analysis of the fuel blends containing acetone was done to ensured high safety of the fuel blend by dramatically increasing the flash point values of biodiesel-polymer fuel blends.

Graphical Abstract