Marine Diesel Fuels Research Articles

Machine Learning Approach for the Investigation of Metal Ion Concentration on Distillate Marine Diesel Fuels through Feed Forward Neural Networks

In this work, a set of Feed Forward Neural Networks (FNN) for the estimation of the metal ion concentration of diesel fuels is presented. The dataset vector is obtained through in situ measurements from distillate marine diesel fuel storage tanks all over Greece, in order to reduce the selection bias. It has been demonstrated that the most correlated ions among them are Aluminum (Al), Barium (Ba) and Calcium (Ca). Moreover, the FNN models are the most reliable models to be used for the model construction under discussion. The initial L2 error is relatively small, in the vicinity of 0.3. However, after removing a small dataset that includes 1–2 data points significantly deviating from the model trend, the error is substantially reduced to 0.05, ensuring the reliability and accuracy of the model. If this dataset is cleared, the estimated error is substantially reduced to 0.05, enhancing the reliability and accuracy of the model. The correlation between the sum of the concentrations of the model in relation with the Density and Viscosity are, respectively, 0.15 and 0.29 which are characterized as weak.

Energy, exergy, sustainability evaluation of the usage of pyrolytic oil and conventional fuels in diesel engines

Solid wastes like used tires have high annual production and significant environmental impact potential. Tire wastes can be pyrolyzed to regenerate energy and create useful products. The purpose of this study is to demonstrate the use of pyrolytic oil produced by the pyrolysis of waste tires as fuel in diesel engines. The energy exergy and sustainability of pyrolytic oil and conventional marine diesel fuels were examined in this study. The energy was determined in the experimental processes used to transform used tires into carbon black, pyrolytic oil, and pyrolytic gas. The components of SOX, NOX, and CO2 produced when pyrolytic oil and conventional marine fuels were combusted in diesel engines were obtained. As a result of the study, the energy value of the pyrolytic oil produced during the pyrolysis process as fuel was determined to be 2.8 MW. The results indicated that the combustion of pyrolytic oil in diesel engines had a thermal efficiency of 38% and a second-law efficiency of 58%. The standard marine fuels were found to have a sustainability index of 2.7, while pyrolytic oil had a sustainability index of 1.42.

Influence of physicochemical properties of depressor additives on their performance in diesel fuels

The work investigates the influence of the physicochemical properties of depressor additives on their performance in diesel fuels of various chemical and fractional compositions. Heavy, summer and marine diesel fuels were used. The following physicochemical properties of fuels were determined: cloud point, freezing point, density, viscosity, fraction composition and hydrocarbon content that formed a complex with carbamide. The content and molar mass distribution of individual n-alkanes in diesel fuels were determined. The following foreign depressant-dispersing additives were used: Dodiflow with codes 4971, 5416, 5817 and 7118, Keroflux with codes 3501, 5696a and Ofi-8863. Their active agents were isolated from the commercial additives by dialysis using semi-permeable rubber membranes. The dropping point of the active agents, their intrinsic viscosity in kerosene and the refractive index at 100 °C were identified. The content of vinyl acetate components and the degree of branching of aliphatic radicals of depressor additives were determined using infrared spectroscopy of the active agents. The relationship between the physicochemical properties of depressor-dispersing additives and their performance in diesel fuels was established. Additives characterised by a relatively high melting point, an average intrinsic viscosity and low branching of aliphatic compounds in the polymer structure exhibit the best performance in fuels. The consumption of additives to achieve the maximum depression of freezing point decreases with the transition from summer to marine fuel and further to heavy diesel fuel. A complex tкп / СВА value, comprising the ratio of the dropping points tкп and the content of vinyl acetate components in the additives, was proposed as a means of predicting the efficiency of depressant additives СВА. In the range of tкп / СВА values of 3.02–4.00 the additives have universal depressant properties. A correlation was established between the refractive index nD100 of additives and the complex value tкп / СВА (R2 = 0.975).

Оценка воспламеняемости топлив для судовых дизельных двигателей

There were studied the influence of composition of foreign marine fuels on its quality indexes which estimate the combustibility and combustion efficiency of this fuels in the marine reciprocators. It was found that using the high-density fuels in the engines of marine technique, which specified for exploitation on the automotive diesel fuels, can be the cause of decreasing the combustion efficiency, increasing of smokiness of exhaust gases and facility of technique’s failure. Using of methyl esters of fatty acids in the marine fuel’s composition in concentrations until 1 mass percent influents positively on combustibility and combustion efficiency. This result in the aggregate of results of other researches of influence these concentrations of FAME on the emulsification and lubricity of marine fuels follows to possibility of its short-time using marine technique. Experimentally proved the necessity of offered calculating method which estimates the combustion efficiency and combustibility of marine fuels. It was found that this method is more adequate and sensitive for estimation of those properties of heavy marine diesel fuels and petroleum diesel fuels with the FAME contention then the method of estimation of Cetane Index (GOST 27768).

Thermal efficiency investigations on the self-ignition test engine fed with marine low sulfur diesel fuels

Within the article an issues of implementing the new kinds of marine diesel fuels into ships’ operation was described taking into ac-count restrictions on the permissible sulphur content introduced by the International Maritime Organization. This is a new situation for ship owners and fuel producers, which forces the necessity to carry out laboratory research tests on especially adapted engine stands. How to elaborate the method enabling quality assessment of the self-ignition engine performance, considered in three categories: ener-gy, emission and reliability, represents the key issue of the organization of such research. In the field of energy research, it is necessary to know the thermal efficiency of the engine as the basic comparative parameter applied in diagnostic analyzes and syntheses of sequen-tially tested marine diesel fuels. This type of scientific research has been worked out for two years in the Department of Marine and Land Power Plants of the Gdańsk University of Technology, as a part of the statutory activities conducted in cooperation with the Regional Fund for Environmental Protection in Gdansk and the LOTOS Group oil company. This article presents the algorithm and results of thermal efficiency calculations of the Farymann Diesel D10 test engine in the con-ditions of feeding with various low-sulfur marine diesel fuels: distillation and residual fuels. This parameters stands for one of ten diag-nostic measures of the ranking of energy and emission quality of newly manufactured marine diesel fuels being built at the Department.

Inherent safety assessment of alternative technologies for LNG ships bunkering

The adoption of liquefied natural gas (LNG) as an alternative marine fuel is a promising solution for “green shipping”, with potential extensive reduction of pollutant emissions. The future development and spread of LNG technologies for ship bunkering and fuel systems operation will necessarily need to face the safety issues associated with the high flammability of LNG, compared to conventional marine fuels. In this study, a comparative analysis of the inherent safety performance of the foreseen technologies for LNG bunkering was performed. Moreover, a comparison with conventional technologies based on marine diesel fuels was also carried out. An inherent safety ranking based on overall indicators deriving from severity of consequences and credibility of loss of containment events was introduced. The results allowed the identification of the inherently safer solutions for maritime fuel bunkering, highlighting critical units and providing insights on the safety issues to be addressed for the future development of green shipping technologies.

Effects of alternative marine diesel fuels on the exhaust particle size distributions of an off-road diesel engine

The main objective of this study was to find out how alternative fuels affect the exhaust gas particle size distribution. The fuels are later intended for marine applications. Along with low-sulfur marine light fuel oil (LFO), a high-speed off-road diesel engine was fueled by circulation-origin marine gas oil (MGO), rapeseed methyl ester (RME), crude tall oil derived renewable diesel (HVO), the 20/80 vol.-% blend of renewable naphtha and marine LFO, and kerosene. Particle size distributions were measured by means of an engine exhaust particle sizer (EEPS), but soot, gaseous emissions and the basic engine performance were also determined. During the measurements, the 4-cylinder, turbocharged, intercooled engine was run according to the non-road steady cycle complemented by an additional load point. The engine control parameters were kept constant, and any parameter optimization was not made with the studied fuels. Relative to baseline LFO, both naphtha-LFO blend and RME reduced particle numbers above the size range of 50 nm. Circulation-origin MGO and kerosene generated a high total particle number (TPN), most likely due to their higher sulfur contents. MGO and RME were beneficial in terms of carbon monoxide (CO) and hydrocarbon (HC) emissions while nitrogen oxide (NOx) emissions were the highest with RME. The differences in smoke emission were negligible.

A multivariate statistical analysis to evaluate and predict ignition quality of marine diesel fuel distillates from their physical properties

Ignition quality of diesel fuels used in compression ignition engines is mainly described by their respective Cetane Number (CN). The most widely accepted method for CN measurement is the ASTM D613, involving a variable compression ratio Cooperative Fuel Research (CFR) engine. However in the recent years other alternative methods based on a Constant Volume Combustion Chamber (CVCC) concept have gained significant popularity mainly due to lower cost of acquisition, maintenance and operation, still being able to provide accurate results. Other widely accepted parameters for the characterization of ignition quality of diesel fuels are cetane indices. These are empirical mathematical equations, based on simple physicochemical properties (such as density and distillation characteristics) and usually correlate well with CN. However, they are accurate enough within narrow limits and are very prone to produce misleading results when involving modern fuels, or biofuels and their blends. In this work, an effort was made to investigate the room for improvement for the prediction of CN, apart from the use of the most widely accepted method of Calculated Cetane Index (CCI), standardized by ASTM D4737, with regard to today's used marine diesel fuels. A total of 47 distillate marine diesel fuels (with high sulfur content compared to automotive diesel fuels) has been employed in order to create multivariate regression models to predict CN equivalents. Thus, useful conclusions were drown in an attempt to evaluate the importance of various physicochemical properties with regard to ignition quality, as well as a first step to the potentiality of revaluation of empirical mathematical models currently in use.

Unsupervised classification of petroleum Certified Reference Materials and other fuels by chemometric analysis of gas chromatography-mass spectrometry data

As feedstocks transition from conventional oil to unconventional petroleum sources and biomass, it will be necessary to determine whether a particular fuel or fuel blend is suitable for use in engines. Certifying a fuel as safe for use is time-consuming and expensive and must be performed for each new fuel. In principle, suitability of a fuel should be completely determined by its chemical composition. This composition can be probed through use of detailed analytical techniques such as gas chromatography–mass spectroscopy (GC–MS). In traditional analysis, chromatograms would be used to determine the details of the composition. In the approach taken in this paper, the chromatogram is assumed to be entirely representative of the composition of a fuel, and is used directly as the input to an algorithm in order to develop a model that is predictive of a fuel’s suitability. When a new fuel is proposed for service, its suitability for any application could then be ascertained by using this model to compare its chromatogram with those of the fuels already known to be suitable for that application.In this paper, we lay the mathematical and informatics groundwork for a predictive model of hydrocarbon properties. The objective of this work was to develop a reliable model for unsupervised classification of the hydrocarbons as a prelude to developing a predictive model of their engine-relevant physical and chemical properties. A set of hydrocarbons including biodiesel fuels, gasoline, highway and marine diesel fuels, and crude oils was collected and GC–MS profiles obtained. These profiles were then analyzed using multi-way principal components analysis (MPCA), principal factors analysis (PARAFAC), and a self-organizing map (SOM), which is a kind of artificial neural network. It was found that, while MPCA and PARAFAC were able to recover descriptive models of the fuels, their linear nature obscured some of the finer physical details due to the widely varying composition of the fuels. The SOM was able to find a descriptive classification model which has the potential for practical recognition and perhaps prediction of fuel properties.

Quantification of trace fatty acid methyl esters in diesel fuel by using multidimensional gas chromatography with electron and chemical ionization mass spectrometry.

Measurement of contamination of marine and naval diesel fuels (arising from product mixing or adulteration) with biodiesel or fatty acid methyl esters can be problematic, especially at very low levels. A suitable solution for this task for trace amounts of individual fatty acid methyl esters with resolution and quantification can be achieved by using a multidimensional gas chromatographic approach with electron and chemical ionization mass spectrometric detection. A unique column set comprising a 100 m methyl-siloxane nonpolar first dimension column and high-temperature ionic liquid column in the second dimension enabled identification of individual fatty acid methyl esters at below the lowest concentrations required to be reported in a diesel fuel matrix. Detection limits for individual fatty acid methyl esters compounds ranged from 0.5 to 5.0 mg/L, with excellent linearity up to 5000 mg/L and repeatability of the method from 1.3 to 3.2%. The method was applied to the analysis of diesel fuel samples with suspected biodiesel contamination. Contamination at 568 mg/L was calculated for an unknown sample and interpretation of the results permitted the determination of a likely source of the contamination.

高温雰囲気中における舶用軽質油の単一液滴の着火遅れ

The ignition delay of a suspended fuel droplet in high ambient temperature was experimentally investigated. The fuel oils used in the experiment were 9 light cycle oils and 10 marine diesel fuels. The effect of ambient temperature on ignition delay was observed. The result shows that there is a good relationship between ignition delay and evaporation time of the oils under higher ambient temperatures. The ignition delay increases with a decrease in the ambient temperature. For lower temperatures, the ignition delay increases step-wise. The ignition temperatures of the light cycle oils are higher than those of marine diesel fuels.

Raman Spectroscopy for the Undergraduate Teaching Laboratory: Quantification of Ethanol Concentration in Consumer Alcoholic Beverages and Qualitative Identification of Marine Diesels Using a Miniature Raman Spectrometer

Raman spectroscopy has steadily gained popularity as a powerful tool in both the analytical lab and the undergraduate classroom. The technique is attractive because it allows for rapid, nondestructive qualitative or quantitative analyses of many analytes with little or no sample preparation requirements. The introduction of less expensive, smaller, and more powerful diode laser excitation sources and the recent availability of rugged, red‐sensitive, charge‐coupled device–based miniature modular spectrometers has prompted the integration of Raman spectroscopy into the undergraduate curriculum. We have evaluated the analytical utility of a small, portable Raman instrument for the qualitative and quantitative analyses of two “real” samples. The experiments in this paper were designed to be used as a laboratory component for undergraduate education and include the quantification of ethanol in consumer alcoholic beverages and the qualitative identification of marine diesel fuels that had been spilled on surface waters. In the case of the liquor samples, the ethanol concentration in colorless, odorless alcoholic beverages could be determined very rapidly, but colored and heavily scented liquors proved more difficult and required pretreatment with activated carbon to remove fluorescence that masked the Raman signal. Similarly, a high‐intensity fluorescence background was observed to mask characteristic Raman bands of the diesel fuels. Some reduction in the intensity of the fluorescence was observed after carbon pretreatment of the fuels. The set of undergraduate experiments described in this paper treat the concepts of quantitative and qualitative analysis using portable instrumentation, instrumental calibration by the standard addition and external curve methods, and method development for the analysis of real consumer and environmental samples.

Combustibility Evaluation of Heavy Fuel Oil by Modified Fuel Ignitability Analyzer

FIA (Fuel Ignitability Analyzer) from Fueltech, Norway has already achieved plenty of ignitability evaluation of many kinds of marine diesel fuels over the world. In this study, a total fuel evaluation method on FIA measurement was newly proposed through constructing electronically controlled injection systems. These systems realized near square-shaped injection rate and good repeatability. In the course of the measurement progress, the experimental conditions required to evaluate fuel combustibility became clearer than before. Indexes introduced to evaluate fuel combustibility on the heat release process in FIA successfully determined the troublemaking fuels. Supplementary indexes on simple composition analysis also succeeded in defining the boundary of troublemaking fuels. With all the examinations, combustibility analysis of bunker fuel oil on HA system brought into reality for the first time.

THE IMPACT OF [60]FULLERENE ON JET FUEL STABILITY

ABSTRACT The use of Buckminsterfullerene (C60) has been investigated as a jet fuel deposit inhibitor. Based on deposit reductions observed in accelerated storage stability tests of marine diesel fuels, it was hoped that fullerenes would produce similar reductions in thermal deposits. It was found, however, that the most profound impact of the fullerene was to photosensitize the fuel towards formation of high levels of hydroperoxides. Although this may not necessarily be occurring via free radical autoxidation, the rapid formation of hydroperoxides would constitute a likely autoxidation initiator.

Storage stability of marine diesel fuels

The cause of instability in marine diesel fuels was investigated by ageing several fuels at 65 °C for various periods. Aged and unaged fuel samples were chromatographically separated into acid, base and neutral fractions, and the fractions were analysed in detail to obtain a clearer understanding of the mechanism of colour change and sediment formation. The results suggest that oxidation of neutral compounds to polar intermediates may be a major pathway for sediment formation and darkening of marine diesel fuels. Considerable loss of polar compounds, both those originally present and those newly formed, to sediment was also found. Within a compound class, the more aromatic higher molecular weight members were observed to be the most active in sediment formation.