Development of a Diesel Surrogate Fuel Library

Abstract

Diesel fuel is composed of a complex mixture of hundreds of hydrocarbons that vary globally depending on crude oil sources, refining processes, legislative requirements and other factors. In order to simplify the study of this fuel, researchers create surrogate fuels to mimic the physical and chemical properties of Diesel fuels. This work employed the commercial software Reaction Workbench-Surrogate Blend Optimizer (SBO) to develop a Surrogate Fuel Library containing 18 fuels. Within the fuel library, the cetane number ranges from 35 to 60 (in increments of 5) at threshold soot index (TSI) levels representative of low, baseline and high sooting tendency fuels (TSI = 17, 31 and 48, respectively). The Surrogate Fuel Library provides the component blend ratios and predicted properties for cetane number, threshold soot index, lower heating value, density, kinematic viscosity, molar hydrogen-to-carbon ratio and distillation curve temperatures from T10 to T90. A market petroleum Diesel fuel with a cetane number of 50 and a threshold soot index of 31 was selected as the Baseline Diesel Fuel. The combustion, physical and chemical properties of the Baseline Diesel Fuel were precisely matched by the Baseline Surrogate Fuel. To validate the SBO predicted fuel properties, a set of five surrogate fuels, deviating in cetane number and threshold soot index, were blended and examined with ASTM tests. Good agreement was obtained between the SBO predicted and ASTM measured fuel properties. To further validate the Surrogate Fuel Library, key properties that were effected by altering the component blend ratios to control cetane number and TSI were compared to a set of five market Diesel fuels with good results. These properties included density, viscosity, energy 2 density and the T10 and T90 distillation temperatures. The Surrogate Fuel Library provided by this work supplies Diesel engine researchers and designers the ability to analytically and experimentally vary fuel cetane number and threshold soot index with fully-representative surrogate fuels. This new capability to independently vary cetane number and threshold soot index provides a means to further enhance the understanding of Diesel combustion and design future combustion systems that improve efficiency and emissions.

Hand-Held Refractometer-Based Measurement and Excess Permittivity Analysis Method for Detection of Diesel Oils Adulterated by Kerosene in Field Conditions

“…Diesel oil is a complex system containing hundreds of hydrocarbons [ 18 ]. Our goal was not to study the chemistry of the intermolecular interactions of diesel oil and kerosene molecules, but merely to monitor the excess permittivity of training sets, first in the laboratory, and thereafter, in samples in field measurement conditions.…”

Imaginary optical constants in near-infrared (NIR) spectral range for the separation and discrimination of adulterated diesel oil binary mixtures

“…The kerosene sample in this study is a low-odor commercial product (sample C, Alfa Aesar). It is important to emphasize the variation of the optical properties of diesel oil and kerosene from different oil fields, because these are complex liquids with hundreds of hydrocarbons [17]. Owing to this fact, we chose a well-known laboratory quality kerosene as a reference that, in principle, is available to scientists worldwide.…”

“…The sign and magnitude of ε E are a measure of the strength of interactions between molecules in a binary mixture. There are hundreds of different hydrocarbons in diesel oil [17], and after adulteration by mixing with different percentages of kerosene, the dipole moments of the electric charges of the binary mixture will change, causing small but observable differences in the measured spectral features. This change also leads to differences in the real and imaginary parts of the excess permittivity, which is the key idea of this paper.…”

Expansion of the feedstock base for the production of diesel fuel by involving the heavy fractions and cold flow improvers

“…At the same time, due to the growth of energy demand for the commercial transport sector and the rise in the market share of diesel vehicles in several areas worldwide, global trends predict the reorientation of the demand towards diesel fuel [1]. Diesel engines are more energy-efficient, reliable, and fuel adaptable [2,3].…”