TY - JOUR
TI - Investigation on improving the thermal efficiency of a mini boiler fired with straight vegetable oils
AU - Punnaivanam Maran
AU - Krishnan Arumugam
JN - Thermal Science
PY - 2020
VL - 24
IS - 2
SP - 713
EP - 722
PT - Article
AB - In the present work, straight sunflower oil and rice bran oil blended with  diesel have been used as fuel diesel in a mini boiler. The thermal  efficiency of the boiler and emission levels in the exhaust gases have been  investigated by burning the oil blends of varying proportions ranging from 0  to 50 %. An additional air supply system and compressed air atomization of  fuel with a new burner have been used to improve the thermal efficiency of  the mini boiler. Results revealed that the additional air supply improved  the thermal efficiency upto 7 % and reduced the CO and HC emission upto 40  %. The use of compressed air atomization further increased the thermal  efficiency upto 4 % and reduced the CO and HC emission upto 70 %.