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As world is confronted with twin crisis of fossil fuel depletion and environmental degradation, greater use of fossil fuels, high import cost of diesel & petrol, growing pollution has make biodiesel an attractive alternative fuel to meet the future energy demand. Biodiesel is an alternative, clean, environmental friendly and biodegradable fuel. Sustainability, regional development, reduction in pollution, security of supply can be achieved with the use of alternative fuels in the daily life. As nation is facing a shortage of edible oil, it would not be feasible to produce biodiesel by edible oils. Castor oil is non-edible oil thus it opened a good opportunity to study its suitability to produce castor biodiesel. The major issue with castor oil was its viscosity which creates poor fuel atomization, carbon deposits formation problems in the conventional diesel engine. A well known base transesterification method was used for castor biodiesel production using methanol and NaOH. The fuel properties of castor biodiesel blend B100 were studied and compared with petrodiesel. Blending of biodiesel with diesel in different proportions such as B20, B40, B50 were tested in diesel engine.

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Dr S.K. Mahla is working as Assistant Professor in Department of Mechanical Engineering at I.K. Gujral Punjab Technical University Campus, Hoshiarpur. Dr. S.K. Mahla is a recipient of Department of Science & Technology (DST)-SERB Young Scientist Scheme Fast Track Project in 2014.

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