| Summary: | Transportation is a crucial aspect of global development and the utilization of fossil fuels in most combustions systems seems inevitable. This class of fuel has led greatly to worldwide environmental pollution with its attendant effects on human health and climate changes. Biofuels from biomass are sustainable and viable alternatives that can eliminate the problems associated with petroleum fuels and are most compatible with the existing combustion systems. Biodiesel will further ensure positive energy equilibrium through the conservation of natural resources to improve economic stability, environmental safety and a balanced ecosystem. Most previous works make use of edible oils, which can lead to food security and price challenges. With the abundance of non-edible oil sources unexploited, the choice of this study is directed towards producing biodiesel from a non-edible seed with little or no information on its combustion properties. This study extracted Sandbox (Hura crepitans) oil chemically using analytical n-hexane as solvent and subsequently produced biodiesel from the oil via one step-transesterification. The biodiesel was characterized according to global standards for biodiesel (ASTM D6751 and EN 14214) and blended with petrodiesel to give five fuel samples (D100, B10, B20, B30 and B100). These fuels were combusted in a compression ignition (CI) engine test bed to determine its performance and emission characteristics. The results showed that the Sandbox seed produced oil with a good oil yield of 47.77% and the biodiesel produced had a yield of 86.49%, which satisfies the recommended global standards. B10 exhibited the best and highest BTE after D100 at all the torque levels (4 Nm, 6 Nm and 7 Nm) as well as the least and the most desirable emission of CO2 when compared with all the other fuels. The utilization of Sandbox biodiesel in combustion ignition engine was found to be a viable option at enhancing biofuel utilization and reduction of pollutant emissions from the present combustion of fossil fuels.
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