Re: Re: Can I make Diesel fuel out of Kerosene and Motor Oil?

Posted by Steve - IN on September 17, 2002 at 19:53:41 from (12.222.132.139):

In Reply to: Re: Can I make Diesel fuel out of Kerosene and Motor Oil? posted by bill b va on September 17, 2002 at 15:09:00:

Interesting what you see on here that triggers things you might suppose are long forgotten. Octane and Cetane were chemical compounds long before they became rating systems. It's been a long time since I took chemistry (which may be what this discussion is about) but here's what I remember.

Crude oil is a mixture hydrogens and carbons. The various molecules have longer or shorter chains of Carbon atoms. When you "crack", distill or refine crude, various molecule come off at different temps depending on the number of C atoms they have. A chain with just one carbon atom in it (CH4) is the lightest chain, known as methane. The first four chains -- CH4 (methane), C2H6 (ethane), C3H8 (propane) and C4H10 (butane) -- are all gases. Next comes the liquid forms, Pentane has five, hexane has six (these molecules are called napthas -- you might have an example of them called paint thinner). With 7 C's, Heptane, you get into liquid gasoline. Next an eighth one called Octane!

Pump gas is a mixture of chains with 7 to 11 C atoms per molecule. They stared with Heptane. It made a good bang, but exploded very easily when compressed. So they added some C8, Octane (hept for 7, oct for 8. Latin) and the resulting blend gasoline became easily usable in an engine when compressed (that is, it didn't explode when you didn't want it to). So, basically an 87 octane gas got its rating because it has 87 per cent of the Octane molecule and 13 per cent of the Heptane, C7 molecule (or some blend of C7 to 11 chains with the same properties when compressed).

Next is kerosene in the C12 to C15 range, followed by diesel fuel at C16 and heavier fuel oils like No. 2 at about C17. Next come the lubricating oils at C18. The C18 molecules no longer vaporize in any way at normal temperatures.

The chains up through C18H32 or so are all liquids at room temperature. Chains above C19 are all solids at room temperature.

So the question gets to be can you mix a C18 with a C12 or a C13 to duplicate the qualities of C16? Hmmm. Well, C18 doesn't vaporize well. That's a problem. Next is the kerosene mostly C12, or C13, or C14, or C15? Dunno. Is the ambient temp like Alaska, or are we in Duane's state of Pennsylvania where it was about 80 today. Does Duane's "yesterday's tractor" have an electronic control module on it to sense surge, detonation, temp, etc. and inject the proper mixture to compensate? Probably not... we are on yesterday's tractors - not today's tractors - after all; and we can guess Duane is probably not talking about his '92 Chevy truck with three microprocessors in the ECM black box. We do know that engines and people get upset about the difference betwen C7, and C8. And we do know that there are now variables of temperature which don't call for a C11 to a C15 that we'd might use when it's cold outside -- which 80 degrees isn't. Given what we do know versus what we don't know, I still think it's safer to say no, probably not the best idea you ever had, Duane. Maybe wait 'til it's the dead of winter, then burn 13 parts C14 to 85 parts C16, and leave the C18 out of the equation altogether, or at least until it's 100 outside and you have an ECM that knows what to do with it, and a pump / injector set up that won't get trashed by it.

By the way, Cetane rating comes from cetane, which is identified chemically as n-hexadecane (hexadec meaning 16), and by definition of the rating system that sprung up, is rated at 100. Added to it is heptamethyl nonane, a highly refined branch paraffin with an assigned cetane of 15. The compression ratio of the engine is varied to produce the same ignition delay period for the test fuel as the two reference blends of higher and lower quality. Like octane, just stand the scale on its head.

Steve

Follow Ups:

• Re: Re: Re: Can I make Diesel fuel out of Kerosene jve 20:47:14 12/06/06 (0)
• Re: Re: Re: Can I make Diesel fuel out of Kerosene seamus close 10:46:33 09/03/04 (0)

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