BIODIESEL FUEL IS BETTER FOR YOUR TRUCK

Biodiesel is America's homegrown, clean air alternative to imported petroleum.

Biodiesel can be produced from domestic renewable resources including vegetable oils and recycled restaurant grease. Pure biodiesel contains no petroleum, but it can be blended at any level with petroleum diesel to create a biodiesel blend. It can be used in compression-ignition (diesel) engines with no major modifications. Biodiesel is simple to use, biodegradable, nontoxic, and essentially free of sulphur and aromatics.

Virgin vegetable oil used for the manufacture of biodiesel can be harvested from many oil feedstock plants like soybeans, sunflower seeds, rape seeds, palm oil and even some types of algae. Recycled vegetable oil from local restaurants and other used sources are also a useful reservoir of renewable fuel for diesel engines as approximately 4.5 billion gallons per year of used vegetable oil is available in the USA.

The concept of using vegetable oil as a fuel dates back to 1895 when Dr. Rudolf Diesel developed the first diesel engine to run on vegetable oil. He demonstrated his engine at the World Exhibition in Paris in 1900 and described an experiment using peanut oil as fuel in his engine.

The overall smog forming potential from biodiesel hydrocarbon emissions is nearly 50% less than that measured for ordinary diesel fuel.

Biodiesel has more lubricity

Biodiesel is a fantastic lubricity additive and biodiesel is going to become even more important in the nations fuel mix as the US moves towards using Ultra Low Sulfur diesel fuel. Testing at labs such as Southwest Research Institute, Standyne Automotive and Engineering Testing Services have demonstrated that biodiesel provides significant lubricity improvement over petroleum diesel fuel, even at blend levels as low  as 1%.

Biodiesel provides significant lubricity improvement over petroleum diesel fuel. Lubricity results of biodiesel and petroleum diesel using industry test methods indicate that there is a marked improvement in lubricity when biodiesel is added to conventional dieselfuel. Even biodiesel levels as low as one percent can provide up to a 65 percent increase in lubricity in distillate fuels.

When the sulfur present in diesel fuel is combusted by the engine, it results in the black smoke and high emission levels in the exhaust plume. The sulfur level of petroleum based diesel fuel that is used for on-road purposes is limited to 0.05% by weight. This limit was mandated in 1993 as a method to decrease particulate matter emitted from diesel powered vehicles.

With the introduction of mandated Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) low-sulfur diesel fuel, fleet operators began to encounter premature wear and/or failure of injector pumps in increasing numbers. Pump manufacturers began recommending the use of lubricity additives to alleviate the damage that the low sulfur diesel was causing to their injection pumps.

The refinery process that removes sulfur, not only lowers the sulfur content but also removes trace amounts of certain polar impurities. Both organo-sulfur compounds and these polar impurities are the ingredients that give diesel fuel its needed natural lubricating qualities.

The EPA has now mandated that the sulfur content in diesel fuel be lowered in on and off road uses, with further tightening in 2005/6 to 15 PPM, a standard that is called Ultra Low Sulfur diesel. In France, biodiesel in small amounts is mandated in every gallon of diesel fuel sold and helps that country use Ultra Low Sulfur diesel throughout its fueling infrastructure. Biodiesel could be used in the same way here in America.

Biodiesel Addresses Concerns in Ultra Low Sulfur Diesel. The EPA finalized a rule that will requirethat sulfur levels in diesel fuel be reduced from 500 parts per million (ppm) to 15 ppm, a 97percent reduction, by 2006. The EPA, the petroleum industry, and equipment manufacturersall recognized during the rulemaking process that the refinery changes necessary to meet thisrequirement will also dramatically reduce lubricity of the diesel fuel. Lubricity is the characteristicin diesel fuel necessary to keep systems properly lubricated. Biodiesel is uniquely positioned toaddress the need for a lubricity additive in ultra low-sulfur diesel because it offers superior lubricityeven in low blends. For example, a one percent blend of biodiesel can improve lubricity by asmuch as 65 percent according to tests done by Stanadyne Automotive Corp. Biodiesel hasvirtually no sulfur and already meets the 2006 standard.

Biodiesel is cleaner than diesel fuel

Biodiesel has higher cetane

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