| Summary: | Straight vegetable oil (SVO) biofuel is a promising alternative to petroleum diesel fuel primarily due to its comparable physical properties to that of petroleum diesel fuel. However, the relatively higher viscosity of SVO limits its direct application in diesel engine. To resolve this issue, binary biofuel blends was introduced in this study to reduce the viscosity of SVO. In this work, a novel biofuel namely Melaleuca Cajuputi oil (MCO) was used and blended with refined palm oil (RPO). A total of four blends with the mixing ratios of 20%, 40%, 50% and 60% of MCO were prepared. Various key properties of dynamic viscosity, calorific value and density of the blends were measured and benchmarked against the biodiesel standards based on ASTM D6751. It was found that viscosity and density of the blends decreased with the increase of MCO fraction. Meanwhile, the calorific value of the blends increased linearly as the MCO fraction increased. The blend of 40RPO60MCO was found to have comparable key properties of viscosity, calorific value and density to those of petroleum diesel fuel and ASTM D6751 standard.
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