A group of engineering students from Aligarh Muslim University have succeeded in extracting bio-diesel from refined and used mustard oil, university officials said Tuesday.
Third-year students of the Diploma in Engineering at the AMU Polytechnic designed a bio-diesel extraction plant as part of the recently developed Alternative Fuel and Combustion Engineering Lab, said M. Yunus Khan, assistant professor of mechanical engineering.
The process can help in directly replacing diesel in conventional engines, thereby reducing India's dependence on imported oil and emissions of various pollutants, officials said.
Bio-diesel is a renewable fuel derived from vegetable oil that can be an additive to or entirely replace diesel in engines.