Analysis of properties and estimation of optimum blending ratio of blended mahua biodiesel

The mahua (Madhuca indica) is a non edible oil tree abundantly found in India. The kernel of mahua fruit contains 35-40% of oil which can be a good source of biodiesel. In this paper biodiesel has been prepared from raw mahua oil by transesterification process and different properties of mahua biodiesel have been studied. It has been found that the physico-chemical properties are within the range of different specification standards like ASTM D-6751 of USA, EN-14214 of Europe and IS-15607 of India. It contains around 41.2% saturated and 58.8% unsaturated fatty acid. Though viscosity of raw mahua oil reduces after transesterification, still it is higher than mineral diesel. The cold flow properties like cloud point, pour point and cold filter plugging point (CFPP) are also higher than mineral diesel. In this study mahua biodiesel has been blended with mineral diesel in different volumetric percentage and properties of blended biodiesel have been evaluated against the relevant standards. The different regression equations have been derived to predict the properties at different blending ratio. The developed mathematical models show higher coefficient of regression value (R2) between biodiesel properties and blending percentage. Blending ratio up to 0.3 i.e. 30% blending has been recommended as optimum blending ratio taking Cold Filter Plugging Point (CFPP) into account.