Diesel Engines

as of now all on and off road Diesel is ULSD. ultra Low Sulfur Diesel. Less that 15ppm. Now some Marine diesel fuel has higher sulfur concentrations. But most of it is still under 500ppm.

Now many people overlook the very few advantages of Acid rain, actually most people dont know there are advantages. Certain plants such as alfalfa, require sulfur as a nutrient. Acid rain always provided this, but with acid rain gone, we now have to apply it to fields.

The above is true, but somewhat of a joke. Acid rain is bad, its not very hard to apply sulfur to fields, it just gets mixed in with other fertilizers.

As for NOX. That is also controlled now. That is what the 2010 emissions standards focused on for on-road diesels. Many OEs opted for the easy way out by using Selective Catalytic Reduction. (SCR). Know by many as Urea Injection. Basically Liquid Urea (Diesel Exhaust Fluid (DEF)) is injected into the exhaust stream in a catalyst after the Diesel Particulate filter. The urea reacts with the NOX and converts it to Nitrogen, Water and a small trace of CO2. Its a very simple setup. It does add an additional upfront cost due to the cost of the equipment and it does also require an additional maintenance cost throughout the vehicles life. DEF is $4-7 per gallon and on passenger vehicles, the tank gets refilled every oil change (manufacturers suggested miles). This is mandated by the EPA that the tank be large enough to allow this. On commercial trucks the tanks usually last for a few tanks of fuel which on a commercial truck is a minimum of 100 gallons of fuel on board and can be as high as 400 gallons. How much DEF these systems burn i really cant say, they are brand new in the US(except for the Mercedes Benz Diesels). But I do know the new Duramax has a 5.5 gallon tank, and the OCI is 7,500 miles. Thats on a 397hp/765lb tq engine. So the added cost isnt a lot.

Now there is AdBlue, MBs DEF. Its something ridiculous like $35/gallon. But its no different than generic DEF.

Truck stops are in the process of installing DEF pumps.

Now if you are a farmer reading this, you cannot just put granular UAN urea into the tank.

And for some of the people who payed attention in chemistry, no you cannot pee in your DEF tank.

The tanks have sensors in them to determine what is in them ,and if the wrong fluid is in there it will shut down the vehicle. Same happens if you run out. Now it does give you a grace period to get to a DEF station. But it does this under reduced power. and if you run out in the middle of the desert you may be out of luck.


Other manufacturers such as Cummins, relied on in cylinder technology on their 6.7L to meet the emissions standards. But in order to accomplish this they had to reduce the compression ratio, increase the EGR cooler size and put more Exhaust gas into the cylinder. All of this is done to reduce the combustion temperature. a cooler burn in the cylinder reduces NOX emissions, but it also reduces power and reduces fuel economy. Which is why the B series cummins jumped .8L.

SCR will always provide better fuel economy than a large EGR system with lower combustion temps. A hotter burn is more efficient and SCR allows a very hot burn. A hotter burn also reduces particulate emissions meaning fewer DPF regens.

Then there is the VW TDI. They went one step further and come out with the best of the best. They put cylinder pressure sensors in the glowplugs and used Piezo injectors to alter the amount of fuel put into each individual cylinder for each injection event. By only giving the cylinder the amount of fuel it needs, and by using piezo injectors to inject the fuel multiple times per event, they were able to meet the stringent 2010 emissions standards.


Now for Off-Road vehicles the same emissions regs are coming. 2013 is the date. 2011 is when the NOX standards go into effect, 2013 is when the particulate emissions go into effect. Agco has already put SCR on their tractors. CNH announced it would also be using SCR, and Deere announced they would be going the rout of Large EGR coolers and lower compression.

However currently, off road emissions regulations only cover engines up to 800hp. Engines over 800hp are exempt, thus why most large ships dont have emissions regs.

 

Rudolf built his first engine to run on coal dust.

Now there is a myth that he designed it later on to run on peanut oil and such. But that is not true, it was just running on peanut oil at the worlds fair.

Whether or not he designed it to run on anything I do not know. But the petroleum craze wasnt as big back then.


Any diesel engine will run on 100% biodiesel. The reason you see many scares about it is because it will eat away rubber hoses not designed for it, and it is also a very powerful detergent meaning it cleans out the fuel system and plugs fuel filters.


So if the diesel in your sailboat was built before 1996, replace all of the rubber hoses with new hoses designed to be compatible with biodiesel. Might be safe to just do it anyways unless it is very new.

Then get a box of fuel filters. If it is a very old diesel that has run petro Diesel its whole life, you will need a lot of them, if it is a newer diesel it doesnt have as large of a buildup in it.

Then change the fuel filters extremely often. And the lengthen the intervals from then on.

If the fuel system does not have an inline pre filter, I would install one when you redo the hoses and keep plenty of these on hand. These filters are cheap to replace and will help your more expensive filters last longer.

With B100 the initial cleaning is fairly quick. Once you get through the initial cleaning then you can go back to regular fuel filter change intervals.

I should add that the "cleaning" is automatic, the fuel does it itself, you dont actually clean the system.

Also make sure to not spill it on paint, as it will eat it away,

There is one other issue with Biodiesel and that is its cloud point. Diesel already has a low cloud point, and Biodiesel is much worse. But unless your sailboat is an icebreaker sailboat, you wont have to worry. But I see that you are in BC. So when in storage during the winter, if it is not in a heated garage/shop, it may be wise to drain the system of Biodiesel and store it with winter blend diesel fuel. You can store it with B100 but it will "gel" and you will need new fuel filters come spring.

There is no set number on when B100 gels, so if you plan to do some chilly sailing, you may need to run a lower blend of it.

Also, there are no additives to prevent biodiesel from gelling yet. Just mixing in #1 and #2 diesel.

 

Sefton and Shellyt both hit it on the head.

The short and skinny

Biodiesel is what you could call a "refined" fuel made from sources other than crude oil.
The list of things to make Biodiesel from is a mile long, as you can make it from almost anything. The weirdest thing I saw was somebody in california making it from used car parts.

Soy continues to be the most common, but it is also one of the more inefficient ways of producing it. Im a farmer and I dont think soydiesel is the way. There are so many other better uses for soy and so many more efficient ways to make biodiesel, like Algae. Its simple to grow as long as you have a lot of sunlight. And yeilds 1,000 gallons per acre for one year whereas soybeans only yeild 60.

Any diesel engine will run on 100% biodiesel providing the rubber hoses and seals will handle it. But the actual mechanical parts of the engine whether it is an older diesel running 4,000psi in the fuel system or a new common rail engine running 30,000psi in the system, will run it. As for its compatablilty with DPFs and SCR, I do not have very much information on that yet.

Now SVO, straight veggie oil is commonly the practice of putting used cooking oil straight into your take, and not extracting the glycerin. This requires more modifications to the vehicle which is explained above.

There are also people running diesels on many other things, one guy runs his on used ATF.

The key is the fuel temperature, and the filtration of it. Its has to be clean and kept at a proper temperature where it will flow through the fuel system.


Home grown biodiesel is catching on and is actually fairly simple to make. But there are hazardous chemicals to store which like to explode. But if you keep the barrels properly grounded this will not be an issue.

Soap makers love the glycerin, and maybe if someone in your family is bored, they can use the glycerin from your biodiesel facility to make soap and sell it as an eco-friendly soap. This will help you get a return on investment quicker.

Feedstock is becoming harder and harder to get these days. Waste fryer grease has been gobbled up by large biodiesel facilities, but if you are diehard about it, there are many local co-ops that will sell you feedstock by the tote.

 

there was one researcher who declared that if all americans switched to diesel vehicles, and relied on algae biodiesel we would only need 100,000 acres of algae to produce enough fuel.

This is a far stretch but interesting none the less.

 

yes much more, the thing is that not every american is going to switch to diesel, probably not even half of them, because diesel alone isnt the answer for everybody, even though it is more efficient than gasoline.

Im sure it would still take way more than 100,000 acres to produce enough fuel. Because im sure his figure was in a best case scenario. Well things are never best case scenarios. The biggest issue is the same issue solar powered cars have, sunlight. Algae needs it to grow.

We do have a lot of desert where we could set up these plants, but we still need to get salt water to them.