Fuel property quantification of triglyceride blends with an emphasis on industrial oilseeds camelina, carinata, and pennycress

Industrial oilseeds camelina (Camelina sativa L.), carinata (Brassica carinata), and pennycress (Thlaspi arvense L.) offer great potential as biofuel feedstocks. Their positive agronomic attributes allow for cropping systems and rotations that increase biofuel production on existing lands. The objective of this study was to perform a comprehensive fuel property evaluation of these promising oilseeds and compare them to several traditional oils. Three industrial (camelina, carinata, pennycress) and four conventional (soybean, canola, sunflower, corn) oilseed feedstocks were evaluated and compared. Both crude and refined oils were used in the evaluation to determine refinement's effect on fuel properties. Straight vegetable oil (SVO), biodiesel (B100), triglyceride blends (TGB), and renewable diesel (R100) fuel pathways were compared to petroleum diesel for the fuel properties that were measured. The paper focuses on TGBs as an on-farm fuel pathway, since the commercial market for these oils is still emerging. The TGB blend percentage of vegetable oil to E10 gasoline was varied to show its effects on fuel properties. For several feedstock and fuel pathway combinations, this paper presents the first published fuel property results. The physical and chemical properties of TGBs were also studied through phase diagrams and NMR spectroscopy. TGBs were found to be both physically and chemically stable over the expected timescale of use. For the TGBs, several fuel properties were improved compared to SVO due to the addition of gasoline, such as viscosity, density, speed of sound, heating value, and cold flow properties. Flash point was reduced due to the volatility of the gasoline component, hence users should treat TGBs with same handling and storage precautions as gasoline. The results were similar for the industrial oils as the traditional oils in the evaluation. The results show TGB may be an ideal fuel pathway for farm-scale fuel production or for other users in remote areas using locally sourced plant oils as feedstock.