Sylvie Willis
Diesel fuel, also known as diesel oil, heavy oil, or simply diesel, refers to any liquid fuel designed for use in a diesel engine. While diesel fuel specifications generally allow for trace amounts of up to 20 parts per million of lead, this is due to natural impurities in the Earth where the crude diesel was sourced, rather than an additive. Lead was historically added to gasoline/petrol to prevent knocking, but diesel combustion does not suffer from this problem, and so lead is not added to diesel fuel.
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What You'll Learn
Diesel fuel specifications and lead content
Diesel fuel, also known as diesel oil, heavy oil, or simply diesel, is a liquid fuel used in diesel engines. These are internal combustion engines that use compressed inlet air and fuel injection to ignite the fuel without a spark. Diesel fuel needs good compression ignition characteristics. The most common type of diesel is a specific fractional distillate of petroleum fuel oil, but biodiesel, biomass-to-liquid (BTL), and gas-to-liquid (GTL) diesel are becoming more common. Diesel fuel is standardised in many countries. For example, in the European Union, diesel for road use is called diesel or white diesel, while agricultural diesel is called red diesel.
Diesel fuel specifications typically allow for 20 parts per million of lead in the diesel fuel. This lead occurs naturally in the Earth where the crude diesel is sourced. However, lead was never added to diesel fuel. Instead, diesel combustion prevents the knocking problem that petrol engines have. In fact, the goal is to remove as many impurities as possible from diesel, such as sulfur, which can damage older engines.
Petroleum diesel is produced by the fractional distillation of crude oil between 200 and 350 °C at atmospheric pressure. This results in a mixture of carbon chains containing between 9 and 25 carbon atoms per molecule. This fraction then undergoes hydrodesulfurization. Usually, this "straight-run" diesel is insufficient in supply and quality, so other sources of diesel fuel are blended in. Kerosene is added to modify its viscosity.
In some countries, diesel fuel is dyed for identification purposes. For example, in the United Kingdom, Belgium, and the Netherlands, untaxed diesel for agricultural use is dyed red. Using this untaxed diesel fuel for taxed purposes, such as driving, can result in fines. In the Republic of Ireland and Norway, diesel fuel is dyed green.
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Lead in gasoline for automobiles
Lead was never added to diesel fuel. Instead, it was added to gasoline (also known as petrol) to prevent knocking in engines. This "leaded gasoline" contained an organolead compound called tetraethyllead (TEL), which was first added to gasoline in the 1920s. TEL increased the octane rating of gasoline, allowing for higher engine compression, improved vehicle performance, and better fuel economy.
However, concerns arose in the mid-20th century when scientists discovered the toxic effects of TEL. It was found to cause lead poisoning and was highly neurotoxic, especially to children's developing brains. Exposure to lead has been linked to various health issues, including anemia, behavioural disorders, low IQ, learning disabilities, nerve damage, hypertension, and cardiovascular disease.
In response to these concerns, many countries began phasing out the use of TEL in automotive fuel. The United States played a pivotal role in this process, with the Clean Air Act of 1970 setting the stage for the formation of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the subsequent removal of lead from gasoline. By 1996, the US had completely eliminated the sale of leaded gasoline for on-road vehicles. Most countries followed suit by the early 2000s, and in July 2021, the sale of leaded gasoline for cars was officially ended worldwide.
The phase-out of lead from gasoline has had significant health benefits. In the US, the mean blood lead level decreased from 16 μg/dL in 1976 to 3 μg/dL in 1991. Additionally, the number of children with toxic levels of lead in their blood decreased by 2 million per year between 1970 and 1987. Some neurologists even speculate that the lead phase-out may have contributed to a rise in average IQ levels by reducing cumulative brain damage in the population.
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How diesel engines work
Diesel fuel does not contain lead.
Diesel engines and gasoline engines are both internal combustion engines designed to convert the chemical energy available in fuel into mechanical energy. However, they operate differently.
Firstly, a diesel engine has no spark plug. Instead, it compresses the air and then injects the fuel directly into the combustion chamber (direct injection). It is the heat of the compressed air that lights the fuel. The higher compression ratio of the diesel engine (14:1 to 25:1) compared to a gasoline engine (8:1 to 12:1) leads to better efficiency.
Rudolf Diesel, who invented the diesel engine in 1878, theorised that higher compression leads to higher efficiency and more power. When the piston squeezes air with the cylinder, the air becomes concentrated. Diesel fuel has a high energy content, so it is more likely to react with the concentrated air.
Another key difference is that gasoline engines generally use either carburetion, in which the air and fuel are mixed long before the air enters the cylinder, or port fuel injection, in which the fuel is injected just before the intake stroke (outside the cylinder). Diesel engines, on the other hand, use direct fuel injection, injecting the fuel directly into the cylinder.
Newer diesel engines are equipped with high-pressure common rail fuel systems and may also have a glow plug to facilitate fuel ignition when the engine is cold.
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Colloquial names for diesel fuel
Diesel fuel has several colloquial names and synonyms. Most commonly, it is simply referred to as "diesel". In the United Kingdom, diesel fuel for road use is sometimes called "white diesel" to differentiate it from a reduced-tax agricultural product with a coloured dye known as "red diesel". The official term for white diesel is DERV, short for "diesel-engine road vehicle".
In Australia, diesel fuel is also referred to as "distillate", although this term can be confusing as it historically referred to a different motor fuel, and was also used to refer to any light fuel oil that could be burned in multifuel farm tractors in the 1920s to 1940s. In Indonesia, Israel, and most of the Middle East, diesel is known as "Solar", a trademarked name from the national petroleum company Pertamina. In France, the term "gazole" is sometimes used. Diesel fuel is also called "diesel oil" or "heavy oil" (historically).
Other names for diesel fuel include "commercial diesel", "power kerosene", "hydrocarbon-based fuel", "petroleum spirits", "turpentine substitute", "paint thinner", and "gasohol". In academic circles, petroleum-derived diesel is sometimes called "petrodiesel" to distinguish it from biodiesel and other alternatives.
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The origins of diesel fuel
Diesel fuel, also known as diesel oil, heavy oil, or simply diesel, is a liquid fuel designed for use in a diesel engine. The diesel engine was invented by Rudolf Diesel around 1892, and it was designed to work with a diverse range of fuels. Initially, Diesel did not intend to use any specific type of fuel in his compression-ignition engine, claiming that his rational heat motor would work with any kind of fuel in any state of matter.
During his initial tests, Diesel used illuminating gas as fuel, and later experimented with various types of lamp oil, petrol, ligroin, and crude oil from Pechelbronn, which proved too viscous. He soon replaced it with kerosene (paraffin), which became the main testing fuel for the Diesel engine. Diesel also tested coal tar creosote, paraffin oil, gasoline, and fuel oil, all of which worked well as fuels for his engine. In Scotland and France, the first 1898 production Diesel engines used shale oil as fuel because other fuels were too expensive. Interestingly, the first diesel engine built by the French Otto society in 1900 ran on peanut oil instead of crude oil, and no modifications were necessary for this operation.
Before diesel fuel was standardised, most diesel engines ran on cheap fuel oils, which are still used in watercraft diesel engines today. Diesel fuel is derived from crude oil, which is extracted from the ground through wells and offshore rigs and sent to refineries to be turned into various extracts, including gasoline, diesel, and kerosene. This process involves heating the oil and capturing the vapours in separate tanks to condense into different types of fuel.
Following World War II, the first modern high-quality diesel fuels were standardised internationally, with additives for performance being developed in stages. Today, the most common type of diesel fuel is a specific fractional distillate of petroleum fuel oil, but alternatives that are not derived from petroleum, such as biodiesel, biomass-to-liquid (BTL), or gas-to-liquid (GTL) diesel, are becoming increasingly common.
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Frequently asked questions
Diesel fuel specifications generally allow 20 parts per million of lead in the fuel. This lead is naturally occurring from the Earth where the crude diesel was taken.
Lead in fuel is primarily an anti-knock agent, raising the octane rating and permitting higher compression ratios in the engine.
Lead in gasoline for automobiles has been banned from nearly every corner of the world, with most bans dating from the 1990s. However, Pakistan is one of the few countries in Asia that continues to use leaded petrol as vehicular fuel.
Diesel fuel, also called diesel oil, heavy oil, or simply diesel, is any liquid fuel specifically designed for use in a diesel engine.
