To investigate the combustion and emission behavior of straight vegetable oils (SVO), jatropha oil, soybean oil, and diesel fuel were tested. For this research, a 2.2L common-rail engine with a two-stage turbocharging concept was equipped with a cylinder pressure indication system, an exhaust-gas analyzer, an AVL Micro Soot sensor and a Scanning Mobility Particle Sizer 3936 (SMPS) device to detect the particle-size-distribution (PSD). At a low and mid-load engine-operating point (EOP), the thermodynamic and emissions were investigated under various exhaust gas recirculation (EGR) rates with respect to the PSD. Moreover, the injection behavior of the three test fuels was analyzed separately using an injection rate analyzer. This procedure facilitates the thermodynamic investigations of the engine process and allows the calculation of the hydraulic delay (HD) as well as the ignition delay (ID). The ID of the SVO fuels compared to diesel fuel was found to be lower at all engine-operating modes, while jatropha oil always showed the shortest ID. In the particulate-nitrogen oxide (NOX) trade-off, the SVO fuels showed higher particulate matter (PM) emissions at the low-load EOP, whereas the PM emissions of diesel fuel overtop the SVO fuels at a higher engine load. With increased EGR-rates, a rise in the particle size was observed for all fuels. At the low-load EOP, the SVO fuels showed larger particles for high EGR-rates. This effect also changed by increasing the engine-load to the mid-load EOP, wherein the particle size of the diesel fuel emissions is higher by applying elevated EGR-rates.