September 18, 2024 • 11 mins
In this episode of the Fuel Pulse Show, host Erik Bjornstad delves into the basics of long-term diesel fuel storage. He explains that diesel fuel begins to degrade almost immediately after refining due to unstable molecules and environmental factors like heat, oxygen, water, and microbial contamination.
Bjornstad discusses various tests to assess fuel health, including water and sediment, oxidative stability, and microbial testing. He recommends removing water and biomass, eliminating microbial contamination, and using fuel stabilizers to slow degradation.
The episode emphasizes the importance of early intervention and regular maintenance to extend the life of stored diesel fuel, providing valuable insights for fuel storage management.
What You'll Learn:
- The chemical processes that occur in stored diesel fuel
- Factors that accelerate fuel degradation during storage
- How to assess the health and stability of stored fuel
- Key tests for evaluating fuel condition, including water and sediment, oxidative stability, and microbial tests
- Methods to slow down fuel degradation and extend storage life
- The importance of removing water and biomass from stored fuel
- Why addressing microbial contamination is crucial for fuel stability
- The role of fuel stabilizers in preserving fuel quality
- Best practices for maintaining stored diesel fuel over long periods
- The significance of early intervention in fuel storage management
Ideas Worth Sharing:
Here are three notable quotes from the podcast episode:
- "Heat speeds up all of those chemical reactions linked to degrading the fuel. This kind of process always happens faster in hot weather than cold weather."
- "Using a fuel stabilizer is an essential step to stopping the oxidative and other chemical reactions that, if left unchecked, will result in stored fuel degradation."
- "Even if you could avoid every single one of these, you would still have reactive precursor molecules already in the fuel that would start to attack healthy fuel molecules virtually from day one."
Resources:
Show Notes:
00:00 - Introduction and episode topic
00:59 - What happens when fuel is stored
01:59 - Factors that speed up fuel degradation
03:59 - Ways to assess fuel health and stability
05:59 - Key tests for evaluating stored fuel condition
07:59 - Methods to slow down fuel degradation
09:59 - Conclusion and recap
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Welcome to the Fuel Pulse Showpodcast where we talk about all
(00:03):
things fuel for all kinds of people.
I'm your host Eric Bierenstedtand I'll be your guide to the
ever changing world of fuel.
Now in today's episode of thefuel pulse show back to school.
We want to talk about the basicsbehind long term diesel fuel
storage, what to expect to happento the fuel when it's stored and how
(00:24):
best to help it last the longest.
So what happens when you store fuel?
Well, let's start At the beginning,diesel fuel is refined and blended and
produced at the refinery and when itleaves the refinery, it meets all the
necessary specs and you would expectit to perform at its best at that time.
(00:45):
Now, one thing it also has when it'sfirst starting out there is it has
these reactive Unstable moleculesas part of its composition, and
unstable reactive molecules are alwayslooking for things to react with,
to make themselves whole, basically.
Same concept where they talk about freeradical molecules in the human body.
These are molecules that go aroundin your body looking to react,
(01:08):
looking for trouble, essentially.
Over the course of the fuel's life,there are chemical degradation
reactions that are happening fromvirtually the start of the fuel's life.
And if you leave the fuel for longenough on its own, like in storage, then
gums and varnishes and deposits willeventually form simply because of this.
(01:28):
Now, how long will it take to happen?
How quickly can it happen, in your fuel?
Well, That can actually beinfluenced in both directions.
These reactions or this process canbe sped up, or it can be slowed
down depending on what you do.
These reactions can happenfaster if the fuel is exposed
(01:50):
to things from the environment.
That speed that process up,and we'll talk about what some
of those things are shortly.
And then on the opposite end, theprocess can be slowed down by doing
some other things that slow it down.
And we'll talk aboutthose shortly as well.
So what speeds up fielddegradation and storage?
Mainly, it's when the fuel, in thecourse of its storage life, gets exposed
(02:13):
to things around it, or things fromthe environment, which play a part in
accelerating the degrading of the fuel.
Okay?
Like what?
Well, heat.
Heat speeds up all of those chemicalreactions linked to degrading the fuel.
This kind of process always happensfaster in hot weather than cold weather.
(02:34):
There's exposure to oxygen that willspeed up oxidative breakdown of the fuel.
Oxidative breakdown is a seriesof chemical reactions where oxygen
reacts with the fuel moleculesand contributes to its degrading.
Water present also contributes becauseit's associated with carbon dioxide.
Other kinds of chemical reactions,hydrolysis reactions, but also beyond
(02:57):
that, water is a key link to the fourththing, which is microbial effects.
Microbes degrade fuel in anumber of ways because they
can consume parts of the fuel.
They will produce acids that will reactwith and attack the fuel's quality.
Microbes are also bad because theycorrode fuel storage tanks, and they
(03:19):
also produce this biological materialcalled biofilm or biomass and that
will plug filters and it will actuallyalso contribute to corrosion itself.
Now we said that water is linkedto this because the more water
you have in your system, thehigher the chances of microbial
(03:40):
contamination situation developing.
So heat, exposure to oxygen, waterbuildup and microbial contamination,
all of these make stored fuel go bad.
Faster, before we talk about the converse,what slows it down, let's touch on
the question of, are there any ways totell how healthy or how far along in
(04:04):
the degradation process your fuel is?
How can you tell if the fuelis unstable or if the fuel is
on its way to being unstable?
Well, you can make measurements.
valid inferences fromdifferent kinds of testing.
There are numerous different teststhat will tell you something meaningful
about the field's properties andits condition, but it's important
(04:25):
to also understand that there maybe differences in what some of these
test results really mean, what they'rereally telling us, and it's helpful
to know what those differences are.
Now, you can divide The universalfuel tests into two broad categories.
There's on the one hand, there arefuel tests that tell you, this
(04:47):
is how the fuel is right now.
It tells you what the fuels conditionis in a specific way right now.
But then the other tests results say thisis a snapshot prediction of the direction
that the fields condition is heading.
So, with that in mind, let's talkabout the tests that can speak to this
(05:08):
question of your stored fuels condition.
You might also be able to frame itas, what kind of testing will best
tell me if my fuel is either alreadybad, or is heading in that direction?
So, for that, We considerthree big test options.
First option is thewater and sediment test.
(05:30):
It's in the ASTM 975 slate.
This is the only one out of thethree that's not predictive.
It's actually descriptive.
The water and sediment test tellsyou how much water and sediment are
in the fuel at the time of testing.
Now, if the fuel is unstable, if thefuel has degraded or is degrading,
(05:52):
then it will produce these sediments.
Then these sediments willhave been produced and they
will show up on that test.
That test result will be high.
The test can also be high if there isexcess free water or suspended water.
Either way, a failing result here ona water and sediment test is a sign
(06:13):
that you need to take some kind ofaction for the health of your fuel.
Test number two is theoxidative stability test.
Oxidative stability is a predictive testthat will tell you if nothing changes
about how the fuel is stored, it will tellyou the likelihood that that fuel is going
to degrade and produce those degradationproducts, those deposits, gums, varnishes.
(06:37):
If your oxidative stability testresult is higher than recommended,
Then again you need to do something.
Then the third thing is microbial testing.
Microbial testing tells you ifthe microbe levels in the fuel are
high enough to expect problems.
And if they are, then you can bepretty certain that your fuel is going
(06:58):
to be headed towards instability anddegradation if it's not already there.
And that's because of whatthe microbes do to it.
So if A microbial test is too high.
Again, you need to do something.
Alright, so we know whatspeeds up store fuel breakdown.
And we know some of the ways thatyou can tell how bad it is or
(07:20):
what condition your fuel's in.
Now, let's consider the converse.
What slows down the degradation process?
Well, you're not likely going tobe able to do something about heat
affecting the fuel, and you can'treally keep the fuel in the real
world from being exposed to oxygen.
So, that's not something youcan practically mitigate.
(07:40):
But there are some otherthings that you can do.
Thing number one, removing thingsyou find, like water and biomass.
When these are detected, it'salways a good idea to remove them.
I mean, think about it.
If water present is, if water presentis considered to be part of this
degradation equation, Then removing thewater helps break that equation, right?
(08:04):
Plus, removing water and removing biomassalso reduces the chances of microbial
problems developing in the future.
And if you have a microbial problemexisting already alongside this,
removing the water and the biomass isgoing to be an essential step towards
eliminating that microbial problem.
(08:24):
So in other words, You can't really solvea microbe problem effectively without
also removing the support elementsthat are water, biomass, and sediment.
Okay, speaking of that, killingmicrobial contamination will
slow down stored fuel breakdown.
That should be pretty self evident, right?
(08:45):
Microbes will break the fuel downin a number of ways, so killing
those microbes and getting rid ofthem is important to stopping that
process, or at least slowing it down.
And then finally Using a fuelstabilizer to fight the chemical
reactions that we talked about inthe very beginning of this show.
Using a fuel stabilizer is anessential step to stopping the
(09:06):
oxidative and other chemical reactionsthat, if left unchecked, will
result in stored fuel degradation.
Now it's always recommended thatyou treat your fuel with a chemical
stabilizer package at least once ayear and you want to treat it in as
early in its storage life as possible.
(09:26):
So if you get new fuel in your storagetank, You want to add stabilizer
so that that chemical package ispresent at the very beginning when
those reactions want to start up.
If the stabilizer isn't in thereat that time, there's not going to
be anything in there to stop thosereactions and they're going to proceed.
So get the stabilizer inthere early on if you can.
(09:49):
So, those are the aspects of long termfuel storage that you need to know.
There's a number of common environmentalelements that fuel gets exposed to.
Heat, oxygen, water,microbial contamination.
And they will degrade the fuel over time.
And even if you could avoid everysingle one of these, you would
still have reactive precursormolecules already in the fuel that
(10:13):
would start to attack healthy fuelmolecules virtually from day one.
Fortunately, we've got thosesteps we just talked about.
Removing water, removing biofilmsand sediment, killing the
microbes, treating with stabilizer.
These steps will protect your stored fueland help it to last as long as possible.
(10:34):
So that's it for thisback to school episode.
Thank you very much for joining me thistime for the fuel pulse show podcast.
If you like what you heard, feel free tosubscribe so you don't miss any updates
and if you want, leave us a review atyour podcast platform of choice and
we'll see you next time for the nextepisode of the fuel pulse show podcast.
Welcome to the Fuel Pulse Showpodcast where we talk about all
(00:03):
things fuel for all kinds of people.
I'm your host Eric Bierenstedtand I'll be your guide to the
ever changing world of fuel.
Now in today's episode of thefuel pulse show back to school.
We want to talk about the basicsbehind long term diesel fuel
storage, what to expect to happento the fuel when it's stored and how
(00:24):
best to help it last the longest.
So what happens when you store fuel?
Well, let's start At the beginning,diesel fuel is refined and blended and
produced at the refinery and when itleaves the refinery, it meets all the
necessary specs and you would expectit to perform at its best at that time.
(00:45):
Now, one thing it also has when it'sfirst starting out there is it has
these reactive Unstable moleculesas part of its composition, and
unstable reactive molecules are alwayslooking for things to react with,
to make themselves whole, basically.
Same concept where they talk about freeradical molecules in the human body.
These are molecules that go aroundin your body looking to react,
(01:08):
looking for trouble, essentially.
Over the course of the fuel's life,there are chemical degradation
reactions that are happening fromvirtually the start of the fuel's life.
And if you leave the fuel for longenough on its own, like in storage, then
gums and varnishes and deposits willeventually form simply because of this.
(01:28):
Now, how long will it take to happen?
How quickly can it happen, in your fuel?
Well, That can actually beinfluenced in both directions.
These reactions or this process canbe sped up, or it can be slowed
down depending on what you do.
These reactions can happenfaster if the fuel is exposed
(01:50):
to things from the environment.
That speed that process up,and we'll talk about what some
of those things are shortly.
And then on the opposite end, theprocess can be slowed down by doing
some other things that slow it down.
And we'll talk aboutthose shortly as well.
So what speeds up fielddegradation and storage?
Mainly, it's when the fuel, in thecourse of its storage life, gets exposed
(02:13):
to things around it, or things fromthe environment, which play a part in
accelerating the degrading of the fuel.
Okay?
Like what?
Well, heat.
Heat speeds up all of those chemicalreactions linked to degrading the fuel.
This kind of process always happensfaster in hot weather than cold weather.
(02:34):
There's exposure to oxygen that willspeed up oxidative breakdown of the fuel.
Oxidative breakdown is a seriesof chemical reactions where oxygen
reacts with the fuel moleculesand contributes to its degrading.
Water present also contributes becauseit's associated with carbon dioxide.
Other kinds of chemical reactions,hydrolysis reactions, but also beyond
(02:57):
that, water is a key link to the fourththing, which is microbial effects.
Microbes degrade fuel in anumber of ways because they
can consume parts of the fuel.
They will produce acids that will reactwith and attack the fuel's quality.
Microbes are also bad because theycorrode fuel storage tanks, and they
(03:19):
also produce this biological materialcalled biofilm or biomass and that
will plug filters and it will actuallyalso contribute to corrosion itself.
Now we said that water is linkedto this because the more water
you have in your system, thehigher the chances of microbial
(03:40):
contamination situation developing.
So heat, exposure to oxygen, waterbuildup and microbial contamination,
all of these make stored fuel go bad.
Faster, before we talk about the converse,what slows it down, let's touch on
the question of, are there any ways totell how healthy or how far along in
(04:04):
the degradation process your fuel is?
How can you tell if the fuelis unstable or if the fuel is
on its way to being unstable?
Well, you can make measurements.
valid inferences fromdifferent kinds of testing.
There are numerous different teststhat will tell you something meaningful
about the field's properties andits condition, but it's important
(04:25):
to also understand that there maybe differences in what some of these
test results really mean, what they'rereally telling us, and it's helpful
to know what those differences are.
Now, you can divide The universalfuel tests into two broad categories.
There's on the one hand, there arefuel tests that tell you, this
(04:47):
is how the fuel is right now.
It tells you what the fuels conditionis in a specific way right now.
But then the other tests results say thisis a snapshot prediction of the direction
that the fields condition is heading.
So, with that in mind, let's talkabout the tests that can speak to this
(05:08):
question of your stored fuels condition.
You might also be able to frame itas, what kind of testing will best
tell me if my fuel is either alreadybad, or is heading in that direction?
So, for that, We considerthree big test options.
First option is thewater and sediment test.
(05:30):
It's in the ASTM 975 slate.
This is the only one out of thethree that's not predictive.
It's actually descriptive.
The water and sediment test tellsyou how much water and sediment are
in the fuel at the time of testing.
Now, if the fuel is unstable, if thefuel has degraded or is degrading,
(05:52):
then it will produce these sediments.
Then these sediments willhave been produced and they
will show up on that test.
That test result will be high.
The test can also be high if there isexcess free water or suspended water.
Either way, a failing result here ona water and sediment test is a sign
(06:13):
that you need to take some kind ofaction for the health of your fuel.
Test number two is theoxidative stability test.
Oxidative stability is a predictive testthat will tell you if nothing changes
about how the fuel is stored, it will tellyou the likelihood that that fuel is going
to degrade and produce those degradationproducts, those deposits, gums, varnishes.
(06:37):
If your oxidative stability testresult is higher than recommended,
Then again you need to do something.
Then the third thing is microbial testing.
Microbial testing tells you ifthe microbe levels in the fuel are
high enough to expect problems.
And if they are, then you can bepretty certain that your fuel is going
(06:58):
to be headed towards instability anddegradation if it's not already there.
And that's because of whatthe microbes do to it.
So if A microbial test is too high.
Again, you need to do something.
Alright, so we know whatspeeds up store fuel breakdown.
And we know some of the ways thatyou can tell how bad it is or
(07:20):
what condition your fuel's in.
Now, let's consider the converse.
What slows down the degradation process?
Well, you're not likely going tobe able to do something about heat
affecting the fuel, and you can'treally keep the fuel in the real
world from being exposed to oxygen.
So, that's not something youcan practically mitigate.
(07:40):
But there are some otherthings that you can do.
Thing number one, removing thingsyou find, like water and biomass.
When these are detected, it'salways a good idea to remove them.
I mean, think about it.
If water present is, if water presentis considered to be part of this
degradation equation, Then removing thewater helps break that equation, right?
(08:04):
Plus, removing water and removing biomassalso reduces the chances of microbial
problems developing in the future.
And if you have a microbial problemexisting already alongside this,
removing the water and the biomass isgoing to be an essential step towards
eliminating that microbial problem.
(08:24):
So in other words, You can't really solvea microbe problem effectively without
also removing the support elementsthat are water, biomass, and sediment.
Okay, speaking of that, killingmicrobial contamination will
slow down stored fuel breakdown.
That should be pretty self evident, right?
(08:45):
Microbes will break the fuel downin a number of ways, so killing
those microbes and getting rid ofthem is important to stopping that
process, or at least slowing it down.
And then finally Using a fuelstabilizer to fight the chemical
reactions that we talked about inthe very beginning of this show.
Using a fuel stabilizer is anessential step to stopping the
(09:06):
oxidative and other chemical reactionsthat, if left unchecked, will
result in stored fuel degradation.
Now it's always recommended thatyou treat your fuel with a chemical
stabilizer package at least once ayear and you want to treat it in as
early in its storage life as possible.
(09:26):
So if you get new fuel in your storagetank, You want to add stabilizer
so that that chemical package ispresent at the very beginning when
those reactions want to start up.
If the stabilizer isn't in thereat that time, there's not going to
be anything in there to stop thosereactions and they're going to proceed.
So get the stabilizer inthere early on if you can.
(09:49):
So, those are the aspects of long termfuel storage that you need to know.
There's a number of common environmentalelements that fuel gets exposed to.
Heat, oxygen, water,microbial contamination.
And they will degrade the fuel over time.
And even if you could avoid everysingle one of these, you would
still have reactive precursormolecules already in the fuel that
(10:13):
would start to attack healthy fuelmolecules virtually from day one.
Fortunately, we've got thosesteps we just talked about.
Removing water, removing biofilmsand sediment, killing the
microbes, treating with stabilizer.
These steps will protect your stored fueland help it to last as long as possible.
(10:34):
So that's it for thisback to school episode.
Thank you very much for joining me thistime for the fuel pulse show podcast.
If you like what you heard, feel free tosubscribe so you don't miss any updates
and if you want, leave us a review atyour podcast platform of choice and
we'll see you next time for the nextepisode of the fuel pulse show podcast.
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