The effects of particle contamination on high blend palm biodiesel against fuel filter blockage.

In order to increase energy security or to reduce diesel engine exhaust emissions, the use of biodiesel fuel is continuously increased. This effort is carried out by increasing the composition of biodiesel in the biodiesel blends. One of other considerations regarding the use high composition biodiesel blends above 20% (B20) is the concern of fuel filter blockage or shorten the life time. Various efforts have been done to overcome filter blocking problems due to the use of biodiesel, so that mitigation can be carried out. One of the evaluations of the effect of using palm oil biodiesel with a high composition above 20% has been carried out by acceleration testing in a test rig with additional dust contaminants. The test used fuel filter paper with a porosity of 30 micron with variations in the composition of the test fuel, namely pure diesel/B0 (Pertadex), B30, B50 and B70. The test was carried out by flowing the test fuels through filter paper in a DENSO standard test rig in temperature ambient (around 29°C). Filter blocking was recorded by the differential pressure (delta pressure) between before and after of the test filter paper. The results show that for the pure diesel and biodiesel blends without any contaminants, there is no increase in the differential pressure. Otherwise, for the addition of 3 grams of contaminants per 15 liters of test fuels, a higher biodiesel composition will result in a faster increase in the filter differential pressure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]