A comprehensive review of biodiesel as an alternative fuel for compression ignition engine

In search of alternative fuels for CI engines, many experimental studies have been carried out and posted in the literature during the last few decades. This paper presents a comprehensive review on the production, performance and emissions from a compression ignition engine using biodiesel as alternate to fossil based diesel fuel. The properties of biodiesel produced from different sources and their fatty acid composition have also been described. The experimental set up used by different researchers for the investigations and their findings regarding performance and emissions with respect to mineral diesel have been presented in short for a large number of studies. For better illustration of the facts, results of a few experimental studies available in the literature have been presented in the form of different graphs for selective important performance and emission parameters as case studies. The overall impression is that the performance of the engine slightly deteriorates with the use of biodiesel partially or fully instead of diesel, but the environmental aspects are significantly improved.