RETAIL
OPERATIONS
By PatrickJeitler, product manager for Wayne, A GE Business
Fuel Additives:
The Next Innovation
Begins at the Dispenser
Wayne Ovation
16
T
May/June 2013
JULY/AUGUST 2013
oday's high performance engines require
peak performance from the fuels that feed
them, and environmental and emissions
requirements demand nearly as much.
To meet such requirements, gasoline can
be blended with additives—over 9,000 of which have
been registered with the EPA by nearly 1,200 companies for use with either gasoline or diesel fuel as of
April, 2013.
Why additives? To answer that question, let's take
look at the history of fuel:
When Edwin Drake dug the first oil well in 1859,
he intended for his distilled petroleum to produce
kerosene for lighting. It wasn't until the invention of
the automobile in 1892 that this distilled petroleum
was used to make gasoline as a fuel. Just 30 years
later, nine million cars were using gasoline. The
growing automobile industry churned out bigger
engines and faster cars. In order to produce more
power for higher compression engines, octane levels
rose in gasoline.
Probably the best-known fuel additive was Tetraethyl
lead (the lead in leaded gasoline). It was added to
improve the octane rating of lower grades of gasoline.
The leaded gasoline also improved engine wear, due to
the chemical's added lubricity.
Unfortunately, lead is poisonous, so Tetraethyl
lead was phased out in the mid-1970s. In addition to
being an environmental hazard, leaded gasoline was
damaging to catalytic converters.
When the automotive industry began using
unleaded fuels, engines designed for leaded gasoline
required additives to operate properly. Another
common fuel additive was methyl tertiary-butyl ether
(MTBE). It was first used at low levels in the late 1970's
as a lead replacement. Starting in 1992, it was used in
much higher quantities to raise the oxygen content of
fuel; oxygenated fuel burns cleaner and reduces overall
tailpipe emissions. MTBE was phased out in 2005
due to its potential for ground water contamination.
Currently, Ethanol is the most common additive for
oxygenation.
Over time, several additives have been engineered to
improve specific aspects of the fuel used in combustion
engines, such as:
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