I have some contaminated diesel fuel that lab test shows up to 10% gasoline. :Banghead The head wrench, wants to mix the fuel, 50 gallons at a time with 7500 gallons of clean diesel. I am hesitant to do this with tier 3 engines. What should I do?:notworthy
50 gallons in 7500 is only 0.4%. I don't see that particular mix as a problem. Let's face it the only difference between the 2 fuels is that diesel is slightly higher density because it comes from the heavier fractions of crude oil. You don't mention how many total gallons of diesel that you have with up to 10% contamination. It would need a good plan to ensure that the mixing process does not introduce dirt or water contamination to the resulting fuel.
I have 6 drums and 5000 gallons in an AST. The mixing would take place in a 10000 gallon AST at our shop. What is the limit on gas contaminated with diesel the head wrench says 8%.
I had a similar dumbass contamination though on my pickup Ford 7.3 5 gallons of gas before I realized I screwed up, 40 gallon tank, a little over 10 percent, what 12.5%? towing a pretty heavy trailer. Results I saw were a slight reduction of power and an EGT increase of about 100 degrees. Fuel was gone in a day, ran it really low and filled up full with the correct pump. I'd be happy to dispose of all of that fuel for you!
If the 50 gallons you are putting in the 7500 is 10% gas, the mix will only be .06% gas, not .4%. (ooh, I love to catch Nige out!) I bet you a nickel that when you go to a gas station, you get more gas than that, just because the transfer tankers use the same hose for both fuels. To think about it another way, when you have 7545 gallons of diesel, you have 5 gallons of gas.
There are states that had began to use 10-15 percent ethanol in diesels. You get more MPG and cleaner burning. Some counties put had put a hold on this due to some safety issues with storage practices. Quite a few diesel heads with pick ups were mixing gasoline with thier diesels to raise the MPG. With a 5000 and 10,000 gallon AST, I would guess you have a pretty good rapore with your fuel supplier. Ask them if the ethanol is banded in your state/county. Typically the top end mix is 15%. Now, if you were to make this a practice of using Ethenol, you WILL see corrosion in your equipment and you'll be hard pressed to find a ULSD approved additive to counter act the corrosion. But to just burn the fuel as a one time deal, I doubt you'll see any ill effects.
Hmmm, thermodynamics is in disagreement. Alcohol has a little more than half the BTUs per gallon of Diesel. It might run a little cleaner but 10% in the mix should yeild 5% less power per gallon burned. Alcohol has a very high octane rating and diesel is very low, that might make a slower burn overall. Gasoline has about 75% the energy of diesel so you'd find a smaller power drop, but still a power and mpg drop.
Octane rating isnt about more energy per gallon (BTU's). Granted the less water and CO2 the purer and higher the BTU's which is why I said in my earlier post about the corrorsion of Ethonal. It is about tolerating higher compression ratio's. Compress gases heats up. It can reach (particularly in a diesel) spontaneously combustion from the heat (engine knock).
Indeed, a high octane rating would stop a diesel from functioning all together.
A 4% MAX ratio is "acceptable" according to Fuel injection pump manufacturers, found in "alternative fuels" service bulletin..
Ethanol in diesel? Seems it would facilitate algae growth?
If the fuel was too sit for a while, it would promote the microbe growth. The corrosion is another concern. There is also some flammability concerns. This is the reason some of the states/counties are holding off on the blends. My boat (gasoline engine) has decals every where to not use ethanol blends due to the boats sitting for longer periods of time. I can say that it is approved in my area and I am not going to be using it in my equipment.
Yep, I found the same thing. However, I called my fuel supplier and they said that gasoline isnt an approved ("ULSD additive) and shouldnt be used. There are heavy fines on not maintaining the ULSD (15% or <). Most suppliers are coming in around 10% < because of the fines.
Don't you mean 15ppm (parts/million of sulphur) not 15% ........? That's the spec for ULSD. I am still of the opinion that a mixture so low as 0.67% by volume (apologies Mitch - it'll teach me to use a calculator next time instead of crunching the numbers in my head!) of gas in diesel will neither affect the burning of said fuel in the engine nor adversely affect the emissions of the engines that are using it.
DUH......my bad. I did mean to say 15PPM. I agree with you. Personally, with the amount of fuel invovled (gasoline and diesel wont seperate once mixed) and the amount of small amount of gas, I would burn the fuel in my equipment. I just wouldnt advertise it................
Agree 100%. Far better to ask for forgiveness than for permission IMHO, although at that low a percentage I bet the lab equipment would be pushed to actually identify the fuel as "contaminated".
Hey Nige, this is my lucky day!:woohoo It's .067, not .67, I think you are forgetting the contaminated fuel being added is only 10% gasoline. Either way, it's an insignificant amount, I just finally got a chance to bust your balls, and I'm gonna enjoy it to the fullest. All the best, Mitch
Twice in the same week too. I think I need to give up ..........!! Going back and thinking about it, which is maybe what I should have done in the first place before I started talking ****, let's crunch the numbers:- 1. As per OP the contaminated fuel has "up to 10%" gasoline in it. Let's assume worst case scenario and say it's 10%. 2. IMHO 1% by volume of gasoline in the fuel would produce no engine issues. 3. So every 1 gallon of contaminated fuel needs to be diluted with 9 gallons of clean fuel to obtain a resulting mix that contains at worst 1% gasoline. 4. So mix 50 gallons of contaminated fuel with 450 gallons of clean fuel and you will have at worst 1% by volume of gas. Now that's what I should have done in the first place ...............
I'll keep it mathematically simple for small minded individuals such as myself to comprehend. Let's eliminate all the symbols such as the %, the #, and the infamous $.... This is based on first handed experience several years ago, while in the petroleum relocation business. I had a 9200 gallon tanker with a 3300 gallon front compartment, and a 1200 gallon second compartment next to it. The night before, I had delivered 8500 gallons of gasoline to a station. Unaware of the fact that the air operated internal valve had closed unexpectedly due to an internal, silent air leak...the 3300 gal. compt. had about 1500 gallons of gasoline in it still after I "thought" I was empty. (Technically, I screwed up, got off focus talking to someone while delivering.) The following morning I arrived at the terminal to reload 8000 gallons of #2 fuel oil (off road, red dyed ULSD was the correct term, as they dyed their ULSD to make off-road/heating oil for reasons far beyond the average man's understanding.) Mainly because they bought Venezuelan ULSD in mega-quantities cheaper than #2 fuel, so they simply dyed it red and called it non-taxable. Anyway, I commensed to load the 3300 gal. compartment, but once it got to 1480 gallons or thereabouts, it shut down. (Overfill protection; liquid hits probe up in top of tank, shorts out overfill mechanism, prevents stupid people from setting meters wrong and blowing dome covers up onto the moon.) I opened the top dome up and it was full to the brim, indicating I screwed up the previous night and left the hole 1/2 full of gasoline. Now I got problems. I loaded the rest of the trailer with off road diesel, delivered it and called the people I leased to about the problem. They wanted me to take it 130 miles back to Boston and pump it into the suppliers (won't say who, that would be wrong of me to let on that a blue and orange gas supplier would do this,) million gallon storage tank of regular gas. That's a common practice, take contaminated fuel and just throw it into the 87 octane tank again. I figured if they could do that, why can't I??? So, I made a few phone calls myself, and ended up selling the 3300 gallons of almost 1/2 gasoline, 1/2 diesel fuel mix to a small fuel dealer for home heating oil use. The bottom line was, I made $100.00 after my mistake instead of costing me hundreds, the fuel heated a multitude of homes in New England without any problems (probably helped prevent gelling that season too,) and no news of any homes exploding because of the mix. I also used to run 100 percent straight K-1 kerosene in a 3406B all winter long in the late 80's, because I used to buy it .10/gal. cheaper than diesel at the pumps in Sinking Springs, Pa. Never had a single issue with that either. It's just well refined diesel. Those days are however a thing of the past. That should sum up all the scientific hypothesis on how much fuel-to-gas ratio we have to worry about right there.