Renewable Energy 27 (2002) 339–351

www.elsevier.com/locate/renene

Effects of preheating of crude palm oil (CPO)

on injection system, performance and emission
of a diesel engine
S. Bari ∗, T.H. Lim, C.W. Yu
School of Mechanical Engineering, Universiti Sains Malaysia, Engineering Campus, Seberang Perai
14300 Nibong Tebal, Penang, Malaysia

Received 20 November 2001; accepted 26 November 2001

Abstract

Crude palm oil (CPO) is one of the vegetable oils that have potential for use as fuels for
diesel engines. CPO is renewable, and is safe and easy to handle. However, at room tempera-
ture (30–32°C) CPO has a viscosity about 10 times higher than that of diesel. To lower CPO’s
viscosity to the level of diesel’s viscosity, a heating temperature of at least 92 °C is needed.
At this temperature, there is a concern that the close-fitting parts of the injection system might
be affected. This study focused on finding out the effects of preheating of fuel on the injection
system utilising a modified method of friction test, which involves injecting fuel outside the
combustion chamber during motoring. Results show that preheating of CPO lowered CPO’s
viscosity and provided smooth fuel flow, but did not affect the injection system, even heating
up to 100 °C. Nevertheless, heating up to such a high temperature offered no benefits in terms
of engine performance. However, heating is necessary for smooth flow and to avoid fuel filter
clogging. Both can be achieved by heating CPO to 60 °C. Combustion analyses comparisons
between CPO and diesel found that CPO produced a higher peak pressure of 6%, a shorter
ignition delay of 2.6°, a lower maximum heat release rate and a longer combustion period.
Over the entire load range, CPO combustion produced average CO and NO emissions that
were 9.2 and 29.3% higher, respectively, compared with those from diesel combustion. 
2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Crude palm oil; Heating; Injection system; Friction; Diesel engine

∗
Corresponding author. Fax: +60-4-594-1025.
E-mail address: saifulFbari@hotmail.com (S. Bari).

0960-1481/02/$ - see front matter  2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
PII: S 0 9 6 0 - 1 4 8 1 ( 0 2 ) 0 0 0 1 0 - 1
340 S. Bari et al. / Renewable Energy 27 (2002) 339–351

1. Introduction

In view of the fast depletion of fossil fuels and worsening environmental pollution
related to fossil fuel use, the search for alternative fuels for diesel engines has been
intensified in the last few decades. Among the many different types of alternative
fuels, vegetable oils and their esters come across as good choices [1–9]. They are
renewable, as the carbon released by the burning of vegetable oils is used when the
oil crops undergo photosynthesis. Moreover, the production of vegetable oils will
create a whole new set of economic activities. In Malaysia, the focus of vegetable
oil research is on the most abundant oil-producing crop, the oil palm. Crude palm
oil (CPO) is readily available, safe to store and handle, and most importantly, totally
renewable. Its negligible sulphur content compared with diesel’s reduces the possi-
bility of acid rain caused by sulphur dioxide emissions [5].
CPO can be made into a biodiesel through the process of transesterification of
triglycerides with methanol. The product of this process is known as palm oil methyl
ester (POME), or palm oil diesel. Studies conducted on POME [4–6] have shown
promising results compared with diesel, in terms of both engine performance and
emission. However, POME is more expensive than CPO, due to the chemical and
mechanical processing involved. The interest in CPO as a diesel substitute stems
from its simple production process, which makes it less expensive than POME.
There have been many attempts to use vegetable oils in diesel engines. These
include the oils of sunflower, safflower, rice bran, peanut, soyabean, coconut, palm
etc. [2,10–14]. Many researchers have reported encouraging engine performance
under short-term usage, but have faced degraded engine performance for prolonged
operation with vegetable oils. The problems reported include fuel filter clogging,
deposit build-up in the combustion chamber, injector coking, piston ring sticking
and lubrication oil thickening [9,14,15], which necessitate overhauling the engine
with change of some parts. The cumulative operation hours before overhaul is needed
are shorter for vegetable oil than for diesel.
One major obstacle in using vegetable oils (of which CPO is one) is their high
viscosity, which causes clogging of fuel lines, filters and injectors [14]. Therefore,
vegetable oils cannot be used directly in diesel engines at room temperatures. In
order to reduce the viscosity of the vegetable oils, three methods were found to be
effective—transesterification, mixing with lighter oil and heating [16]. Prasad et al.
[8] too reported that heating was one of the effective methods to utilise vegetable
oils as fuels. Besides that, preheating of vegetable oil to lower its viscosity to that
of diesel eased the problem of the injection process. Bari and Roy [2] encountered
a similar situation in having to heat rice bran oil to at least 70 °C for it to be used
in a diesel engine. Heating is also essential to ensure smooth flow of fuel in the fuel
system [17].
The general perception is that higher heating temperatures reduce the viscosity of
vegetable oils and offer gains in engine performance. However, the fuel injection
system is made up of parts that are very close fitting, such as the plunger–barrel
assembly. High fuel intake temperature may have adverse effects on these close-
fitting parts since diesel engines normally run with fuel supplied at ambient tempera-
 S. Bari et al. / Renewable Energy 27 (2002) 339–351 341

ture. Consequently, vegetable oils like CPO need to be heated to a temperature that
is high enough to give a low viscosity similar to diesel’s, but not so high as to
damage the injection system.
The objectives of this study are threefold: (a) to examine the effects of fuel inlet
temperature on the injection system; (b) to find a suitable temperature to heat CPO
to lower its viscosity for use in diesel engines; and (c) to compare the performance,
combustion characteristics and emission of CPO with those of diesel.

2. Experimental set-up and procedures

There were two tests done using two slightly different set-ups. The engine used
was a Yanmar L60AE-DTM single cylinder, four-stroke, air-cooled diesel engine,
with direct injection and a maximum power of 4.4 kW at 3600 rpm. The
dynamometer/motor used was a swinging field dc machine. Various gauges were
used to obtain different measurements, as shown in Fig. 1.

Fig. 1. Block diagram of basic experimental set-up.

342 S. Bari et al. / Renewable Energy 27 (2002) 339–351

Fig. 2. The influence of temperature on the dynamic viscosity of pure CPO.

2.1. Friction test

The injection system of a diesel engine is designed to operate with diesel fuel,
which has a viscosity of 3–8 mPa s. In order to compare the viscosity of CPO
to diesel, a viscosity test was performed with a Brookfield viscometer at various
temperatures, and the results are shown in Fig. 2.
Total friction of an engine consists of the friction between various moving parts
such as piston rings and cylinder, crankshaft and bearings, camshaft and rocker arms
and fuel injection pump assembly, to name a few. Among the engine parts that
contribute to total friction, the injection pump is the only part that comes into contact
with fuel before combustion. So, with all other friction components remaining the
same, the effects of fuel heating on the injection pump can be ascertained by per-
forming a friction test that allows the fuel to pass through the injection pump and
injector as usual but avoids any combustion taking place. The test was carried out
by motoring the engine with the original injector installed in a way to inject the fuel
outside the combustion chamber. In place of the original injector, a dummy injector
was put in the engine head. Fig. 3 shows the schematic diagram of the modified
friction test, while Fig. 4 shows the photograph of the same set-up.
Before starting the modified friction test, the CPO was heated to liquid form in
its own tank (secondary heating set-up). The set-up was first motored with diesel,
and the diesel was also heated by the primary heating set-up. This was to ensure

Fig. 3. Schematic diagram for the modified method of friction test.

 S. Bari et al. / Renewable Energy 27 (2002) 339–351 343

Fig. 4. The injector and overflow line of the modified friction test set-up.

that when the fuel was switched to CPO, the fuel lines and fuel filter would be at
a high enough temperature to prevent CPO solidification and subsequent clogging
of the fuel filter. After the engine had reached a steady state, the fuel was switched
to CPO, which was heated to a predefined temperature by the primary heating set-
up. Friction was measured with a load cell, and was recorded at various fuel inlet
temperatures, up to 100 °C. After finishing the experiment, the fuel was switched
back to diesel and the engine was left motored until all the CPO had been purged
from the fuel line, injection pump and injector, to prevent clogging by solidified CPO
when the temperature drops below its melting point after the engine was switched off.
The modified friction test was repeated using diesel as a baseline.

2.2. Performance test, combustion analyses and emission test

To do the performance test, the injector was put back into the cylinder head, and
the engine was fired. The engine was started with diesel until it had warmed up.
Then the fuel was switched to CPO. Readings for engine speed, load, fuel flow,
temperature at different places, etc. were recorded at various fuel inlet temperatures
for various loads. This was done to examine the effect of fuel inlet temperature on
fuel consumption and thermal efficiency within the load range of the engine.
Combustion analyses were also carried out at 55% of full load, with the aid of a
water-cooled piezoelectric pressure transducer fitted on the cylinder head and a TDC
encoder fixed on the output shaft of the engine. The pressure and crank angle signals
were fed to a console, and then passed to a Pentium personal computer for combus-
tion analyses such as peak pressure, ignition delay, heat release rate and net heat
release. Emissions of CO and NO were recorded throughout the load range using a
344 S. Bari et al. / Renewable Energy 27 (2002) 339–351

MSI gas analyser, which has a maximum inaccuracy of ±1 ppm. These combustion
and emission analyses tests were repeated with diesel, as a baseline.
After finishing the tests for CPO, the fuel was always switched back to diesel and
the engine was run until no CPO was left in the fuel line and the injector. The reason
for this was given in the previous section on friction test.

3. Results and discussion

At room temperature (30–32 °C) CPO has a viscosity of about 10 times higher
than that of diesel, and it is in a form of mixture of solid and liquid. Therefore, CPO
cannot be used directly in a diesel engine as it would not flow through the fuel line
smoothly and would clog the fuel filter and injection system. Heating is an effective
method to reduce the viscosity, and the effect of temperature on the viscosity of
CPO is shown in Fig. 2. However, CPO needs to be heated to at least 92 °C to
achieve a viscosity of 8 mPa s, which is similar to diesel viscosity.

3.1. Effects of heating on injection system

Fig. 5 shows the results of the modified friction test that involved motoring while
injecting the fuel outside the combustion chamber. The total friction values for both
CPO and diesel were almost identical, and were quite stable throughout the whole
temperature range, up to 100 °C. For CPO, the friction was around 27.8 N, while
for diesel, it was about 27.9 N. Therefore, a fuel heating temperature of up to 100
°C was assumed to have no adverse effect on the injection pump. Otherwise, thermal
expansion of the plunger–barrel assembly could have caused significant changes in
friction between the moving parts. However, it was important to bring out the point
that the pumping power of the fuel injection pump was low compared with the
overall motoring power of the engine. Therefore, inaccuracy of judgement could
exist. Nevertheless, it can be seen that the friction for CPO was insignificantly lower

Fig. 5. The effects of fuel inlet temperature on friction.

 S. Bari et al. / Renewable Energy 27 (2002) 339–351 345

than that of diesel. This could simply be due to experimental fluctuations, or could
be attributed to the properties of CPO. Previous studies [9,12] found that vegetable
oil had a higher lubricating effect compared with diesel, thus running an engine on
CPO would yield a lower friction power compared with running it on diesel.
It is worth mentioning here that while an engine is running the heat from the
combustion chamber is transferred through the cylinder wall to the other engine
parts, including the fuel injection pump, the fuel discharge line and the injector. For
a fully warmed-up condition of the test engine running with diesel, measurements
found that the temperatures at the injection pump outer surface, the fuel discharge
line and the injector outer surface were 74, 65 and 79 °C respectively. Hence, the
injection pump inner temperature could be expected to be higher than the outer
surface temperature of 74 °C. As a result, heating the fuel up to 100 °C, as was
done in this study, did not affect the injection pump. However, heating the fuel
beyond the usual operating temperatures of the injection pump while the engine is
running needs careful study, as that may damage the injection pump.

3.2. Effects of heating on performance

Fig. 6 shows the brake specific fuel consumption (bsfc) when running on CPO at
different loads and at different fuel inlet temperatures. It is clear from the figure that
the fuel inlet temperature did not have a significant effect on the fuel consumption.
This fact is further backed up by the trends witnessed in Fig. 7, where the brake
thermal efficiencies at different loads at various fuel temperatures confirmed that
heating the fuel did not benefit the performance. As mentioned earlier, due to heat
transfer from the combustion chamber to different parts of the engine, the fuel injec-
tion system runs at an elevated temperature. The fuel temperature at the time of
injection depends on various factors such as temperatures of fuel injection pump,
injector, and fuel inlet to the injection pump. It also depends on mass flow rate of
fuel and ambient temperature. Since the mass of fuel flow is significantly small
compared with the overall mass of the engine, the equilibrium temperature of the

Fig. 6. Effect of fuel inlet temperatures on bsfc for CPO at different percentage of full load.
346 S. Bari et al. / Renewable Energy 27 (2002) 339–351

Fig. 7. Brake thermal efficiency for CPO, at different percentage of full load, at various fuel inlet tem-
peratures.

fuel very much depends on the overall temperature of the injection system, unless
the fuel enters the injection pump at a very high temperature.
From the above discussion, it can be said that the heating of CPO offered no
advantages in terms of performance, but was necessary for the fuel to flow smoothly
in the fuel lines. Therefore, it is now necessary to determine the minimum tempera-
ture to which CPO must be heated, so that the solid phase CPO dissolved fully and
a smooth flow could be achieved. This task was simply completed by observing the
CPO used while heating the CPO in the secondary heating set-up. At 60 °C, all solid
CPO were observed to be totally dissolved. Therefore, the finding was that CPO
must be heated to at least 60 °C for smooth flow.
Since heat loss occurs rapidly through the fuel lines, CPO cools rather quickly
while flowing towards the engine, especially at low flow rates. If the CPO cools to
below 60 °C, it will start to solidify and hinder smooth flow. Therefore, to maintain
the temperature of CPO at a minimum 60 °C throughout the fuel system, the heating
temperature must be higher than 60 °C to compensate for any heat loss. In this study,
the authors heated the CPO in its own tank to around 80 °C. Additionally, the fuel
line was insulated to minimise heat loss.
An interesting observation during the performance tests was that at high fuel tem-
perature (⬎97 °C) and low flow rate (at low load), bubbling occurred with CPO in
the fuel line. The bubbles in the fuel line impeded fuel flow, resulting in unstable
engine operation and possible damage due to violent vibrations. This effect can be
explained as follows. As liquids heat up, their ability to dissolve gasses decreases.
So, as the temperature of CPO becomes higher, gasses that are dissolved in it start
to escape, and accumulate to form bubbles.
From the discussion above, it is clear that there is a suitable heating temperature
for CPO for use as a diesel engine fuel. The lower limit is 60 °C, to ensure that no
solid phase CPO exists, and to maintain smooth flow. The upper limit is 97 °C, to
avoid bubbling. It was also shown that heating CPO did not benefit engine perform-
ance. So, heating is necessary only for avoiding clogging and maintaining smooth
 S. Bari et al. / Renewable Energy 27 (2002) 339–351 347

Fig. 8. Pressures vs. crank angle diagrams for CPO and diesel combustions.

fuel flow. However, considering heat losses in the fuel line and filter, heating up to
80 °C in the fuel tank is recommended. This will make sure that throughout the fuel
line and injection system, the CPO temperature will be above 60 °C.

3.3. Combustion characteristics of CPO as fuel

The combustion analyses results are summarised in Figs. 8–10. The peak pressure
achieved using diesel and CPO is shown in Fig. 8. It can be seen that CPO had a
6% higher peak pressure than diesel. Fig. 9 shows that CPO had a 2.6° shorter
ignition delay but lower maximum heat release rate compared with diesel. Palm oil
consists of roughly 50% saturated and 50% unsaturated fatty acids [18]. Chemical

Fig. 9. Heat release rates for CPO and diesel combustions.

348 S. Bari et al. / Renewable Energy 27 (2002) 339–351

Fig. 10. Net heat release values for CPO and diesel combustions.

reactions, such as cracking of the double bond of the carbon chain, could have pro-
duced light volatile compounds [10,11,19], which resulted in a shorter ignition delay
compared with diesel [19]. Due to shorter ignition delay less fuel was injected during
the delay period resulting in lower maximum heat release rates. This also resulted
in less intense premixed combustion, and usually translates into lower tendency to
knock. It can be seen from Fig. 10 that CPO had a longer combustion period than
diesel. This is due to the fact that another chemical reaction, polymerisation of veg-
etable oil at the high temperature spray core, could have produced heavy low-vola-
tility compounds. These heavy compounds are difficult to combust and could not
completely burn in the main combustion phase, and subsequently continued to burn
in the late combustion phase [10,11,19].

3.4. Emissions

Emission test results are shown in Figs. 11 and 12. Throughout the load range,
the CO and NO emissions for CPO were higher than those for diesel, by average
values of 9.2 and 29.3% respectively. As explained earlier, at high temperatures, fuel
sprays of vegetable oils undergo chemical reactions, which include thermal cracking
(producing lighter compounds) and polymerisation at the spray core (producing
heavy, low-volatility compounds). The air–fuel mixing process is affected by the
difficulty in atomisation of the heavy compounds. The resulting locally rich mixtures
causes more CO to be produced during combustion, due to the lack of oxygen.
The peak pressure for CPO was higher (Fig. 8), which usually translates into
higher combustion temperature [20]. The formation of NO is favoured by higher
combustion temperatures and availability of oxygen [20]. Unlike diesel, vegetable
oils such as CPO also contain oxygen. This fuel-borne oxygen, together with higher
combustion temperatures, favour production of more NO than diesel fuel combustion.
 S. Bari et al. / Renewable Energy 27 (2002) 339–351 349

Fig. 11. CO emissions for CPO and diesel combustions.

Fig. 12. NO emissions for CPO and diesel combustions.

4. Conclusions

The viscosity of CPO at room temperature is too high to allow smooth flow in
fuel lines. To lower its viscosity, CPO needs to be heated. The modified friction test
performed to investigate the influence of heating showed that heating of fuel up to
100 °C had no adverse effects on the fuel injection system. However, heating of
CPO offered no advantages in terms of performance, but was necessary for the fuel
to flow smoothly in the fuel system. The required smooth flow of CPO was achieved
at temperatures of 60 °C and above, at which all solid phase CPO had dissolved.
However, under the conditions the authors encountered during the experiments, the
suitable heating temperature in the CPO tank was 80 °C to account for heat loss
and to ensure a minimum temperature of 60 °C in the fuel line and filter. In the
performance test, it was found that the performance of CPO as a fuel was comparable
350 S. Bari et al. / Renewable Energy 27 (2002) 339–351

to that of diesel. Still, there were differences observed from combustion analyses
results. Comparing CPO combustion to diesel combustion, a 6% higher peak pressure
was obtained with CPO. Also, CPO started to burn earlier, with a 2.6° shorter ignition
delay. A lower maximum heat release rate and a longer combustion period were the
other characteristics of CPO combustion that were noticed. The emission test
revealed that the CO emission from the combustion of CPO was higher over the
whole load range, compared with that of diesel, by an average value of 9.2%. Simi-
larly, an average 29.3% increase in the emission of NO was observed when fuel
was switched from diesel to CPO throughout the range of loading used.

Acknowledgements

The authors wish to thank Universiti Sains Malaysia for an IRPA short-term grant
to conduct this study.

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