Application of house of quality in assessment of biodiesel – Diesel fuel blending technologies.

Biodiesel has gained attention for substituting diesel fuel due to its advantages as a renewable and low emission fuel. Currently, biodiesel is used as a mixture with diesel fuel to obtain a certain volume percentage. However, some biodiesel characteristics are different from diesel fuel and should be considered for a homogeneous and accurate blending, such as density and viscosity. The essential aspect of biodiesel – diesel fuel blending is the mixing method. Several mixing methods include inline blending with a static mixer, in-tank blending, in-truck blending, and in-vessel blending, which have advantages and disadvantages according to capacity, time consumption, and homogeneity. This work aims to carry out technology assessment by applying a house of quality (HOQ) matrix developed in a case study of biodiesel – diesel fuel blending system, mainly to produce B30. The HOQ provides a comparative analysis and identification of specific characteristics in the blending system to meet the customer expectations, supported by a simulation using computational fluid dynamics software at favourable blending methods. The analysis shows that inline blending with a static mixer is recommended as the best method to obtain homogeneous mixture of biodiesel and diesel fuel. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]