language-icon Old Web
English
Sign In

Diesel fuel

Diesel fuel /ˈdiːzəl/ in general is any liquid fuel used in diesel engines, whose fuel ignition takes place, without any spark, as a result of compression of the inlet air mixture and then injection of fuel. (Glow plugs, grid heaters and block heaters help achieve high temperatures for combustion during engine startup in cold weather.) Diesel engines have found broad use as a result of higher thermodynamic efficiency and thus fuel efficiency. This is particularly noted where diesel engines are run at part-load; as their air supply is not throttled as in a petrol engine, their efficiency still remains very high. Diesel fuel /ˈdiːzəl/ in general is any liquid fuel used in diesel engines, whose fuel ignition takes place, without any spark, as a result of compression of the inlet air mixture and then injection of fuel. (Glow plugs, grid heaters and block heaters help achieve high temperatures for combustion during engine startup in cold weather.) Diesel engines have found broad use as a result of higher thermodynamic efficiency and thus fuel efficiency. This is particularly noted where diesel engines are run at part-load; as their air supply is not throttled as in a petrol engine, their efficiency still remains very high. The most common type of diesel fuel is a specific fractional distillate of petroleum fuel oil, but alternatives that are not derived from petroleum, such as biodiesel, biomass to liquid (BTL) or gas to liquid (GTL) diesel, are increasingly being developed and adopted. To distinguish these types, petroleum-derived diesel is increasingly called petrodiesel. Ultra-low-sulfur diesel (ULSD) is a standard for defining diesel fuel with substantially lowered sulfur contents. As of 2016, almost all of the petroleum-based diesel fuel available in the UK, mainland Europe, and North America is of a ULSD type. In the UK, diesel fuel for on-road use is commonly abbreviated DERV, standing for diesel-engined road vehicle, which carries a tax premium over equivalent fuel for non-road use. In Australia, diesel fuel is also known as distillate, and in Indonesia, it is known as Solar, a trademarked name by the local oil company Pertamina. Diesel fuel originated from experiments conducted by German scientist and inventor Rudolf Diesel for his compression-ignition engine he invented in 1892. Diesel originally designed his engine to use coal dust as fuel, and experimented with other fuels including vegetable oils, such as peanut oil, which was used to power the engines which he exhibited at the 1900 Paris Exposition and the 1911 World's Fair in Paris. Diesel fuel is produced from various sources, the most common being petroleum. Other sources include biomass, animal fat, biogas, natural gas, and coal liquefaction. Petroleum diesel, also called petrodiesel, or fossil diesel is the most common type of diesel fuel. It is produced from the fractional distillation of crude oil between 200 °C (392 °F) and 350 °C (662 °F) at atmospheric pressure, resulting in a mixture of carbon chains that typically contain between 9 and 25 carbon atoms per molecule. Synthetic diesel can be produced from any carbonaceous material, including biomass, biogas, natural gas, coal and many others. The raw material is gasified into synthesis gas, which after purification is converted by the Fischer–Tropsch process to a synthetic diesel. The process is typically referred to as biomass-to-liquid (BTL), gas-to-liquid (GTL) or coal-to-liquid (CTL), depending on the raw material used. Paraffinic synthetic diesel generally has a near-zero content of sulfur and very low aromatics content, reducing unregulated emissions of toxic hydrocarbons, nitrous oxides and particulate matter (PM). Fatty-acid methyl ester (FAME), more widely known as biodiesel, is obtained from vegetable oil or animal fats (biolipids) which have been transesterified with methanol. It can be produced from many types of oils, the most common being rapeseed oil (rapeseed methyl ester, RME) in Europe and soybean oil (soy methyl ester, SME) in the US. Methanol can also be replaced with ethanol for the transesterification process, which results in the production of ethyl esters. The transesterification processes use catalysts, such as sodium or potassium hydroxide, to convert vegetable oil and methanol into FAME and the undesirable byproducts glycerine and water, which will need to be removed from the fuel along with methanol traces. FAME can be used pure (B100) in engines where the manufacturer approves such use, but it is more often used as a mix with diesel, BXX where XX is the biodiesel content in percent.

[ "Forensic engineering", "Automotive engineering", "Organic chemistry", "Waste management", "distillation curve", "Brake specific fuel consumption", "European emission standards", "Smoke Emission", "Defeat device" ]
Parent Topic
Child Topic
    No Parent Topic