Prospective use of antioxidants in 2nd generation biodiesel for diesel engines in Australia

Biodiesel is well accepted in Australian vehicles. As per the recommendation of the Prime Minister’s taskforce of Australia, there is no requirement of labelling the biodiesel-diesel blends up to 5% (B5) biodiesel in the commercial outlets. However, the CSIRO (Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation) noted that extensive research should be carried out to resolve the issues of using higher biodiesel content (up to 26%, B26) that meet the petroleum standard but engendered some inconsistencies in engine performance, emission contents and durability. In this article, the non-edible feedstock, Beauty Leaf (Calophyllum Inophyllum) has been studied in terms of its sustainability and stability as a 2nd generation biodiesel fuel in internal combustion engine. It has been found that the amount of polyunsaturated fatty acid esters tend to peroxidized due to its high polymerization contents resulting into gumming in the engine. But the extent of more monounsaturated fatty acid esters increases the viability of the biodiesel as a transport engine fuel. Since the polyunsaturated contents of a biodiesel affect the engine performance in addition to oxidation stability and cetane number of the fuel, the effect of adding antioxidants to inhibit the peroxidation of the fuel is focused in this study. Various groups of antioxidants (natural/synthetic, phenolic/amine type) could be used in the biodiesel as per their inherent properties. The study showed that the phenolic type antioxidants could be a better choice in stabilizing the non-edible biodiesel.