In the recent years, increasing environmental awareness and depletion of energy resources are forcing the researchers to develop viable alternative fuels from renewable energy sources. Vegetable oils have emerged as a very promising alternative substitute for diesel, since they are renewable and produce less emission. Considering these points, tobacco seed oil (TSO), a non edible vegetable oil is regarded as an alternative fuel for diesel engine. Crude oil derived from tobacco seed has high viscosity; the viscosity is reduced by transesterification technique to obtain tobacco seed oil (TSO) methyl ester (TSOME). In the present study, an effort has been made to utilize the neat tobacco oil and TSOME in a CI engine to study the performance, emission and combustion analysis with metal matrix composite materials coated on piston face. Initially tests are conducted on a 5.2 kW, single cylinder, four stroke, direct injection, water cooled diesel engine without coating using diesel as fuel. Further the tests are carried out on the diesel engine for TSOME and TSO with metal matrix composite material coating over the piston face. The results obtained with Low heat rejection engine revealed decrease in brake thermal efficiency and increase in emissions with neat tobacco oil compared with normal diesel engine fuelled with diesel. However, with LHR engine using TSOME, slight improvement in brake thermal efficiency and reduction in emissions are observed when compared with neat tobacco oil operation.
