Experimental Investigation of Avocado Seed Oil Utilization in Diesel Engine Performance

¹ Department of Mechanical Engineering, Petra Christian University Jl Siwalankerto 121–131 Surabaya 60236, Indonesia
² Centre for Sustainable Energy Studies, Petra Christian University Surabaya 60236, Indonesia
³ Department of Mechanical, Aerospace, and Automotive Engineering, Coventry University Priory St Coventry CV1 5FB, United Kingdom

^* Corresponding author: tengsutrisno@petra.ac.id

Abstract

Avocado (Persea americana Mill) is a popular fruit in Indonesia. Its popularity leads to high consumption of this fruit and wastes from its seed. In order to develop renewable energy and reducing wastes in the environment, P. americana seed may be extracted for its oil to create biodiesel fuel. In this study, P. americana seed is obtained through the soxhlet apparatus and transesterification process. After obtaining P. americana seed oil, the oil was mixed with pure petro-diesel with a ratio of 10:90 (B10 fuel) and 20:80 (B20 fuel), respectively. These fuels were tested for their fuel characteristics and engine performances, together with pure petro-diesel and palm oil biodiesel. The fuel characteristics results suggest positive characteristics of B10 and B20 compared to other fuels. For engine performance tests, B10 and B20 fuels have less engine performance than other fuels. However, the differences between these fuels results are small. Overall, the positive aspect of B10 and B20 fuels supersede small disadvantages they have and thus suitable to substitute pure petro-diesel and palm oil biodiesel.