DETERMINATION OF THE EFFECTS OF SAFFLOWER BIODIESEL AND ITS BLENDS WITH DIESEL FUEL ON ENGINE PERFORMANCE AND EMISSIONS IN A SINGLE CYLINDER DIESEL ENGINE

While energy efficiency is an important issue, the development and encouragement of technologies that will use renewable energy sources and extending the use of such technologies constitutes another important step in national energy studies (1). Countries that do not have oil reserves have started to search for alternative energy sources because of such negative conditions. The demand for petrol based fuels has increased instead of decreasing due to environmental factors as the result of the increase in industrialization and the number of motor vehicles. The use of fuels obtained from vegetable products in internal combustion engines as renewable energy is not a new issue, in fact, studies have been conducted on a global scale for a long time. In the present study, biodiesel was produced from safflower oil through transesterification. The fuels obtained were used for preparing 2% biodiesel-98% diesel (B2), 20% biodiesel-80% diesel (B20) and 100% biodiesel fuel mixtures. Afterwards, these fuel mixtures and 100% Eurodiesel fuel were used in a four-cycle, single-cylinder diesel engine with and the changes in the exhaust performance emissions were examined. The results obtained in the experiments were presented comparatively.