Abstract:
Under the ever looming threat of energy crisis production and use of biodiesel promises
a relievable and environment friendly solution. In this light, design and construction of
an automated biodiesel plant can crank up and simplify the production process.
Extraction of biodiesel from vegetable oil is time consuming and requires human
involvement to perform and keep track of chemical titration, stirring and washing the
product for each batch of production. A well designed system can significantly
eliminate human interaction and expedite the whole process. For meeting our energy
demand, Bangladesh is mostly dependent on natural gas and import of fossil fuels from
foreign countries. This dependency leaves our economy vulnerable and susceptible to
international market shocks and supply upset. The concept of using biodiesel is still in
its infancy in Bangladesh though she grows many different kinds of crops suitable for
biofuel production. Construction of an inexpensive automated biodiesel plant can help
produce biodiesel in large scale and make a breakthrough in our economy as no such
effort has been undertaken so far. It is a novel endeavor that seeks to make biodiesel
production cheaper, easier and popularize in our country. To achieve the desired aim
this paper focuses on implementation of the construction of a cheap, compact and
automatic system that will exhaustively reduce human interactions as well as the
processing time and increase the biodiesel yield. For this reason an automated biodiesel
processor was designed and built utilizing a programmable logic controller (PLC) in
conjunction with pumps, solenoid valves, level sensors, temperature sensors, etc. Upon
the completion of a full cycle the automatic biodiesel production plant delivers certified
biodiesel product to the end users and the leftover byproducts are collected for further
recycling. Different batches of biodiesel were produced and a comparative study of the
physical properties such as the density, kinematic viscosity, flash point, calorific value
etc. were measured and result found satisfactory. The performance characteristics such
as Brake Power (BP), Specific fuel consumption (SFC), mass of fuel consumed (mf),
Brake Thermal Efficiency (BTE), exhaust gas emissions etc. of the diesel engine by
these fuel samples were determined and the results were thoroughly studied.
Description:
The author would like to express his sincerest gratitude and deepest reverence to his
thesis supervisor Maj Md. Faisal kader, PhD, Associate professor, Department of
Mechanical Engineering, MIST for his continuous guidance, constructive criticism,
encouragement and careful supervision throughout this research work without which
this thesis would not have been possible.
The Author would like to thank his parents and wife for their unfailing support and
encouragement. Special thanks to M.A. Matin, Manager, Service and Maintenance,
Sterling Multi technologies Ltd, Uttara Dhaka for providing the author tremendous
support and encouragement throughout the research work. The Author would like to
thank the department of mechanical engineering, MIST for providing with the financial
support and the lab assistances for their co-operation. The author would also like to
express his sincere appreciation to all who have helped in one way or the other to get
this research work done.
