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FUELS By BoB TaTnall, P.E. are You Ready For Tomorrow's Fuels? (Are you ready for today's fuels?) W e hear widely varying opinions about the quality of today's heating oil. Apparently it depends on whether you are buying at a terminal or directly from a refinery—and whether you are buying pipeline product or fuel brought in by barge. Speaking as someone who frequently receives fuel samples for testing, I can say with confidence that probably 80% or more of samples received in the past 3-5 years have been of excellent quality. Now let me explain: People usually only send us fuel samples when they are having problems—filter plugging, system corrosion or some other fuel-side problem. If they are having problems, and yet the fuel is of excellent qual- ity, how can this be? The answer is that their problems are not usually resulting from the quality of the fuel itself, but rather from water and contamination in the fuel tank. I blame this confusion on some of the folks who sell fuel additives. You are constantly barraged by peddlers who want you to believe that today's fuel is unstable, that it holds amazing amounts of water, that the sulfur they are taking out was a great lubricant and a biocide and that you therefore need their additives more than ever. Maybe you have been using one of those additives and are still having problems. Maybe the answer to your problem lies not in just additives - but in looking at how you handle your fuel and maintain your fuel systems. Two things are coming to us all: lower sulfur and biofuels. For the most part, all you are hearing about these changes is good things—and yet other fuel dealers are telling you they blame many of their problems on the lower sulfur and bio fuels. Again, you have been getting a sometimes distorted story from the "experts" you depend on for information. I don't have room in this article to tell you everything you would like to know about these newer fuels—but let me give you a few facts to whet your appetite: 1. Sulfur is neither a lubricant nor a biocide. The sulfur in fuel is in the form of hydrocarbon sulfur compounds— mercaptans and the like—that are of no known value in maintaining, storing or burning the fuel. Sulfur in fuel is almost 100% bad news. 2. The process of removing the sulfur, however, changes the fuel chemistry. For heating uses these changes do not have an effect on how you should store and use the fuel. All of the good things that you have heard from Brookhaven Lab and others about reduced-sulfur heating oil are true. 3. Bioheat fuels burn cleaner and are, in many ways, good news for our industry. They certainly improve the odors associated with heating oil and the flue gases that waft down from the chimney. 4. Other than odor and combustion properties, the behavior of biofuels is very much a function of from what they were made. Pour point (gelling temperature) is one of the most variable factors, with some biofuels solidifying at room temperature. As the percentage of biofuel in our product rises from 2% to 20% and more, those factors will change the way we store and transport the product. It is quite likely that we will eventually have to heat all storage tanks, lines and truck tanks—unless the industry adopts pour point specifications that would effectively limit how much biofuel can be in heating oil and from what it can be made. I consider this to be very unlikely, so we will have to adapt. 4. If the fuel system contains free water and biological contamination, a by-product of the biofuel can form a black, sticky stuff that is not like anything you have seen before in your fuel systems—and fouls pumps and nozzles. I call this "black honey," but there's nothing sweet about it! 5. Some dealers are buying and selling biofuels that do not meet ASTM standards—e.g. straight cooking oil. This is going to cause major problems, so be sure your fuel meets ASTM specs. 6. Other than pour point, nearly all problems related to fuels today—including ultra-low-sulfur and bio fuels—are caused directly or indirectly by water in our fuel systems. We have got to learn how to keep water from entering and accumulating in our tanks. More information will follow in future articles. Bob Tatnall is the president of Fuel Right, which produces the Fuel Right sludge/fouling/corrosion control treatment. He can be contacted at 302-425-4400 or by email at bob@ fuelright.com These views are the authors, and not necessarily those of FON magazine. 20 AUGUST 2014 | FUEL OIL NEWS | www.fueloilnews.com l F O N