Basic properties of palm oil biodiesel–diesel blends

The basic properties of several palm oil biodiesel–diesel fuel blends were measured according to the corresponding ASTM standards. In order to predict these properties, mixing rules are evaluated as a function of the volume fraction of biodiesel in the blend. Kay’s mixing rule is used for predicting density, heating value, three different points of the distillation curve (T10, T50 and T90), cloud point and calculated cetane index, while an Arrhenius mixing rule is used for viscosity. The absolute average deviations (AAD) obtained were low, demonstrating the suitability of the used mixing rules. It was found that the calculated cetane index of palm oil biodiesel obtained using ASTM D4737 is in better agreement with the reported cetane number than the one corresponding to the ASTM D976. This result is most likely due to the fact that the former standard takes into account the particular characteristics of the distillation curve.