Potential application on on-line blending diesel oil with vegetable oil for Vietnamese fleet

In Vietnam, bio-fuel has been studied and attracted attention of scientists under the concrete support policy from government. Although general diesel engines and especially marine diesel engines are one of main energy consumption factors and influent to environmental pollution, but bio-fuel has been still in theory researches or reached to small production. It leads to very few or nearly empty application of biodiesel in maritime field. Currently, biodiesel has been imported always and it results in high cost in use. The article shows a direction for applying bio-fuel to marine diesel engine that fossil diesel is on-line blended with straight vegetable oil. The blended fuel is made in the additional mixing equipment that is controlled automatically. This is continuous mixing method of diesel oil from service tanks and vegetable oil installed nearby. Upon analyses on the operation situation of Vietnamese fleet and existent marine diesel engine in combination with infrastructure of local biodiesel production, blending with non-esterification vegetable oil seems to be cost-down feasible solution. A sample of on-line blending system has been designed based on mostly the fuel consumption of marine diesel engine and operated automatically under its control system. Experiments on Hanshin 6LU32 at Vietnam Maritime University’s lab and on-board diesel engines of actual vessels have been conducted with very good results. Importantly, there is no big modification required on the existent fuel supply system. Besides, the new equipment is quite easily installed and compatible with others on board.