The Direct Injection Engine (DI) The engine uses the heat caused by compressing air in a cylinder, with a piston, to ignite fuel oil which is injected into the cylinder. This oil burns and creates an increase in pressure which forces the piston back down the cylinder, providing the power. The burnt gasses are exhausted … Read More

The use of pure or straight plant oil as fuel in diesel engines is an old idea. In fact it was the fuel of choice when the diesel engine was invented and first demonstrated. The only reason straight plant oil (more commonly referred to in literature as straight vegetable oil or SVO) cannot be used … Read More

The process of biodiesel production involves two phases. The first phase is the extraction of crude oil from seeds and the second is the transesterification of the crude oil into biodiesel. The biodiesel extraction process involves the use of machines to extract the oil from the seed. This produces crude jatropha oil, and hull and … Read More

Under Calauan, Laguna, Philippine conditions, tubang bakod (the local name of Jatropha curcas L.) bears harvestable fruit from April to July. Hence the harvesting for jatropha fruit is priming (harvesting the fruit as they mature). Matured fruits are yellowish and turn blackish as they dry. As presented in Table 1, four samples represented the conditions … Read More

Plant’s description. Jatropha curcas L. is found throughout the Philippines. In fact, different regions have their own common name for jatropha. In the Tagalog region, it is known as tubang bakod, tuba and sambo. Among the Bicolanos, it is called tuba and tuba-tuba; in Pangasinan and Nueva Ecija, it is called tagumbao; tawa-tawa in Ilocos … Read More

Jatropha is a genus of about 175 succulent plants, shrubs and trees from the family Euphorbiaceae, subfamily Crotonoideae, and tribe Jatropheae. There are at least four important species, namely, J. curcas, J. gossrifolia, J. podarica, and J. multifada. It was botanist Carl Von Linne who first classified the plants in 1753 and gave the botanical … Read More

There are a number of physical and chemical characteristics of plant oils that affect their suitability as fuels. These include the heating value, pour point, cloud point, flash point, iodine value, viscosity, density, and cetane number. The characteristics that directly affect the efficiency of the fuel and the performance of the engine are summarized in … Read More

The distinction between fat and oil is mainly a physical one. If the substance is solid at ambient temperature, it is called fat. If it is liquid, it is called oil. This distinction is merely for convenience since all oils solidify when the temperature is made low enough and all fats melt if the temperature … Read More

The combustion of fossil fuels such as coal, oil and natural gas has been identified as a major cause of the increase in the concentration of carbon dioxide in the earth’s atmosphere. Carbon dioxide and other so-called greenhouse gases (e.g., methane) allow solar energy to enter the earth’s atmosphere but reduce the amount of energy … Read More

Biodiesel is produced through a series of physical and chemical processing of the fruits, seeds, or parts of oil-containing plants. The first step usually involves the extraction of the crude oil. This step may involve several different types of operations or processes depending on the kind of feedstock. For example, the process of extracting crude … Read More