Department of Agricultural Engineering, Nehru Institute of Technology, Kaliyapuram, Coimbatore 6411 05, Tamilnadu, India
Abstract
In the current scenario, fossil fuels play a major role in environmental degradation. Fossil fuels such as petrol, diesel, coal etc. are widely used in the automobile industry. This has led to the need for newer fuels. Fuels which is ideally renewable and carbon neutral is necessary for environmental and economic sustainability. Thus the approach here is to reduce the stress on fossil fuels by developing a fuel with higher renewable content. It is known that plants use sunlight to produce oils. Like plants, algae use sunlight to produce oils but they do so more efficiently than crop plants. Thus, here algae are used to produce ethanol using fermentation process which is mixed with diesel. Micro algal biofuels are a viable alternative for clean, economical and sustainable sources of energy. This system brings a new application to algae thus converting unnecessary waste into a useful raw material. And also enhancement of bio ethanol is done. Approaches for making algal ethanol economically competitive with petro diesel are discussed. This fuel is tested in diesel engine using diesel blended with ethanol in different proportions
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