Information That Everybody Should Know About Diesel Fuel

By Sarah Evans


All forms of liquid fuels that are used in diesel engines are generally called diesel fuels. Fuel ignition in these engines occurs as a result of compression of inlet air mixture as contrasted to the use of sparks. A certain kind of fractional distillate of petroleum oil called petrodiesel is the most common kind of diesel fuel in use today. However, development and adoption are underway for alternatives extracted from petroleum including biomass to liquid, gas to liquid, and biodiesel.

The name petrodiesel is used for all variants of this energy sources which are extracted from petroleum. Ultra-low-sulfur diesel is that which has very low traces of sulfur. The abbreviation ULSD is often used. USLD is in wide is European states and North America. DERV is the term used for petrodiesel used for road vehicles. In Australia, this sources of energy is referred using the name distillate.

Petrodiesel was discovered by a German scientist and inventor named Rudolf Diesel during experiments with a compression-ignition engine he invented. This happened in 1892. The engine was originally designed to use coal dust, but Rudolf continued to experiment with other energy sources. Some of the fuels used in his experiments include peanut oil and vegetable oil. The engine was later exhibited at the World Fair and Paris Exposition.

Petrodiesel is produced through fractional distillation of crude oil. This process takes place at temperatures ranging between 200 and 350 degree centigrade and results in carbon chains that contain 8 to 21 atoms of carbon per molecule. Fractional distillation is done at atmospheric pressure.

The way this substance is stored must follow certain specifications. In the US, the container of storage needs to be yellow in color. The yellow color differentiates petrodiesel from other fuels such as kerosene and gasoline. Containers for storing gasoline are usually colored red while those that store kerosene are colored blue. Other countries have their own conventions. For example, the container used for storage is usually black in color in the UK.

Measurement of quality is done using cetane number. Centane number is a measure of delay of ignition. If the petrodiesel ignites readily upon being sprayed in hot air, that means it has a high cetane number. Road petrodiesel in European countries must have a minimum cetane number of fifty one. There are also other petrodiesels with higher cetane numbers including premium petrodiesel.

Petrodiesel and other forms of this substance find use in many applications. When the substance became popular in use, it displaced fuel oil and coal in powering vehicles during the last half of the twentieth century. Today, it is used to power cars, trains, aircrafts, and water vessels among others. It has many attractive features that make it suitable for use in military vehicles.

Previously, this material contained a lot of sulfur because oil refineries added it in huge quantities. Later it came to be known that sulfur causes a lot of harm and pollution to the environment and the quantity had to be reduced. Government started to intervene to force refineries into this action. Preferential taxation was adopted on a large scale and it seems to have worked quite well in some countries.




About the Author:



No comments: