Synthetic Diesel Fuel

[MJWenrich]

Did a search for this topic and found one reference to 2009. Spoke to a fellow yesterday that works for a company as a buyer for large trucks and trailers. He has been researching the synthetic fuel lately because according to him, Kalifornia is going to subsidize the stuff so the price will be slightly less than the current price. He says it's good stuff. Burns cleaner. Anyone have experience with the synthetic diesel fuel? I was thinking about lubricity issues with our Cummins engines. Big rigs might use it but their engines are likely somewhat different in design and may not need what we need.

 

[6V92TA]

FWIW ULSD has a lubricity additive. as far as synthetic fuel goes I suspect you mean renewable diesel.. which is something new coming to the market.. its not the same thing as Biodiesel, as it is a manufactured product made out of some type of vegetable material suitable for use in diesel engines. I believe the US Navy has experimented with some of these fuels

 

[JR]

A company bought a bunch of old industrial property here some years ago with the intent of building a Dimethyl ether plant using natural gas as the feedstock. Went so far as pulling all the needed permits through the Port Authority and EPA, and then they left town. This was around the time when fuel went from $4 a gallon to roughly half and eventually lower so I'm guessing it was no longer profitable.

 

[Regcabguy]

I've ran a few tanks of Propel HPR.
No odor at all,runs the same maybe a bit less mileage.
They claim a much higher cetane #.
https://dieselhpr.com/

 

[MJWenrich]

The renewable diesel term is what the fellow used when I was speaking with him. Just did not recall that when I posted the question.

 

[slick rock steve]

The Air Force is also working to develope a syn fuel. Much has been developed, but it is for a different use as it would be poured by the multi gallon into a jet. The benefits I have read about show a much better vapor footprint, and less difficulty in handling, bBUT...it also was rather low in caloric power, and not as efficient as a fuel for recip engines.

 

[AnonEd]

From AutoWeek magazine about 11 years ago...
Consider the Audi R10 race car that won this year’s Sebring 12 Hour and aims to collect the honors at Le Mans in June. Yes, it’s a diesel, but no, it doesn’t smell bad or spew black junk out its tailpipe. A big part of the reason for that is the fuel, which Shell dubs V-power synthetic in the race car and in the pump version sold to consumers in Germany and the Netherlands.

It doesn’t come from oil, but is an engineered fuel derived from natural gas. Starting with the Fischer-Tropsch process devised in the 1920s to convert coal into liquid fuel (a prospect that alarms environmentalists still today), Shell and other oil companies developed GTL (gas-to-liquid) methods that convert natural gas into not only vehicle fuel, but also engineered lubricants and petrochemical feedstock for the production of plastics. Shell has its own proprietary process. The basics are that it partially oxygenates natural gas to get a blend of carbon monoxide and hydrogen, converts that gas to liquid hydrocarbons, and finally cracks the liquid and refines it into useful products. Other players in this field include Marathon, ConocoPhillips and Sasol Chevron.