Sour diesel

hr

Anyone heard of such a product. I have a customer that claims to have access to diesel that has gone bad?? Does diesel have a shelf life?

Anyways he wants to use this for fueling some large boilers. He saw my Clean Burn waste oil boiler and thought this might be the way to go.

Could “sour’ diesel be burned in a regular oil fired boiler?

hot rod


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Constantin

Sour diesel = old?

I thought sour diesel and sour gas referred to fuel sources that were very high in sulfur? If the sulfur hypothesis is true, I imagine you may have some corrosion issues ahead in a regular boiler.

Weezbo

oil

oil dont go sour in the sence gasoline does. I think it is a fuel that has say a dash of tranny fluid a few gallons of motor oil, hydraulic oil...that is the only thing that i have ever heard the term sour diesel lashed up to. an old indian friend of mine cranked up some motors that had been sitting in one place since WW11 busted open some oil drums been sitting around out there since forever and topped the tanks off .he got the things running ..thats some fairly old oil.only other thing is the oil turns yellow and stinks however it never sours according to him.

ALH_3

correct

Sour crude has a high sulfur content. Sweet crude has a low sulfur content. Sour oil does not burn as cleanly, and the sulfur in the exhaust could form sulfuric acid causing corrosion problems. (basically what Constantin said) The process they use to remove the sulfur also detrimentally affects the lubricity of the fuel, so there's a trade-off in injector and injection pump wear.

http://www.nora-oilheat.org/PDF/LOW_SULFUR_V5.pdf

gehring

Microbs and bacteria can grow in old Diesel which will contaminate it and will be noticeable if used in a modern, performance diesel engine. That is why you need to put fuel stabilizer in diesel that is stored for long periods. AND it is also why you should only buy diesel fuel for your truck/car at stations that do high volume and have good product turnover (like at high-volume truck stops) That way there is less risk of getting a batch that has been sitting around long enough for stuff to start growing in it.

Weezbo

carl

that is what my old friend said about gasoline buy it at places that had lots of customers and dont be first or last in lines in the mornings here condensation caused a state wide tear out of every single gasoline station in the state. every below ground tank was pumped empty ,dug out and removed. water in the gasoline is a horrible thing to happen to some lady on her way home from grandmas house in 60 below zero. diesel on the other hand...did i mentione these engines he fired up were to some gert vehicles born back in the 40's? one was left under ocean water one down on the "beach"and the other out in the ocean by the one under water? musta slipped my mind:) he lashed up a gert cable whinch on the one on the beach to the cable whinch to the one out in the sea...cranked up the one on the beach fricked with it a bit and drug the other one up high enough to work on it then he got it to turn over...repositioned it and strung all the cables out to the cable whinch cable of the one under water, This One Guy mind you doing all this stuff not a herd of young dudes,he finally got that pos up on the beach fricked with it got it to roll the motor...this is the work of an old friend of mine who passed over to the other side a few years ago. he did all this mechanican work in a matter of days they musta made the oil better back then.

Firedragon_4

The diesel from WWII was

refined differently from today's stuff, FACT! You could probably use that in a 100 years. Today's diesel (and steel, for thr drums) are much different and do have shelf lives.
For more info go to this site:
http://www.goldeagle.com/sta-bil/faqs.htm

This will also help you:
http://api-ep.api.org/

hr

Thanks all

for the info. Based on the links you-all provided, sounds like it is not a wise choice for heating fuel. At any cost!

Maintenance and more importantly emissions are a concern of mine. Think I'll pass this info along to the shopper, and pass on the job, or sell him a high efficiency LP fired boiler.

hot rod

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Constantin

By the way,

I once worked on a project to evaluate microturbines in distributed energy applications. Folks like Capstone, Alliant, etc. are developing sub-75kW units as either standby or baseline AC power supplies.

Anyway, sour gas compatibility is one of the things that are touted by some microturbine manufacturers. I can't recall why their systems are allegedly sour-gas proof (ceramic combustion chambers?) but microturbines may find a use in locations with sour gas (such as landfills, for example).

Note: AFAIK, there is no microturbine capable of ingesting oil, even though the technology should be feasible. (If they can power a Abraham tank with oil and it has a turbine...)

Constantin

In another piece of

unimprtant trivia, ever wonder why large ocean-going freighters typically have two gas tanks, one huge, one tiny?

You guessed it: one tank to hold the high-sulfur sludge that they can only use off-shore where no air pollution regulations are in effect, the other to hold cleaner diesel which they use inshore. Shipping companies always warm my heart... particularly when you read about their behemoths crossing the oceans at 20+ knots without lookouts and other stunts as specifically prohibited by COLREGs.

I'm sure there are some ethical shipping companies out there... Just haven't met one yet... and I continue to be appalled how lightly marine professionals get off when they commit murder on the high seas.