Cooking Oil Improves Diesel Fuel Performance

Low-sulfur diesel fuels allow for the use of technologies that can clean engine emissions, but the removal of sulfur causes wear in fuel injector systems. To have the best of both worlds – cleaner emissions and engines that can last with cleaner fuels – Penn State engineers have shown they can add specially treated cooking oils to the fuel to reduce friction and wear. These cooking oils can include soybean, canola, or sunflower says Dr. Joseph Perez, adjunct professor of chemical engineering and leader of the project.

“Low sulfur diesel fuels mandated in California will soon be required in all states to enable diesel engines to meet the 2004 emission regulations,” says Dr. Perez. “We’ve shown that adding as little as 10% of a specially-treated mixture of vegetable oil and fuel reduces both friction and wear.

“There has been concern that there might be an insufficient volume of vegetable oil to meet both food and fuel needs,” the researcher added. “However, our results show that when the vegetable oil-fuel mixture is oxygen-treated, you need only two% vegetable oil to produce the same friction and wear performance as current high sulfur diesel fuel.”

Dr. Perez notes that the vegetable-based additives showed equivalent performance in laboratory tests when compared to a commercial petroleum-based oil and also showed improved lubricity over the petroleum product.

“The biodegradable oils are effective lubricants and have the potential to displace petroleum-based products in various applications including engine oils,” Dr. Perez says. “Vegetable oils are renewable resources reducing our dependency on imported oil.”