Biodiesel is a renewable, biodegradable fuel which can be used as a direct substitute for petro-diesel, usually requiring no modification to diesel engines. Recently, oxidative stability is emerging as an important issue for biodiesel stability. Degradation by oxidation yields oxidation products that may compromise fuel properties and impairing fuel quality and engine performance. Most of the analytical methods used for measuring stability are time consuming and not reliable.
A new multiple input variable NIR spectroscopy-based technique has been experimentally investigated for the first time to achieve rapid and precise measurements of the oxidative stability of biodiesel fuels. A new experimental test procedure has been developed to generate, capture and analyse nanoparticles emitted from the diesel fuels. A new experimental methodology to dilute and collect the nanoparticle sample on a diesel engine test rig has been successfully designed, built and installed. This methodology was used to develop experimental investigation of the impacts of biodiesel structure and composition on nanoparticle size and morphologies.This work will for the first time establish the nanoparticle size and morphology with biodiesel fuel type.