Originally Posted By: 63Avanti
trying to find the jell point. BD 2 - 100 is getting easier to get in North Texas, and I am thinking about putting in a tank to stop the 5-gallon runs.
I forwarded this question to John Cummins, VP Technical Service, at Hydrotex and here is his reply.
----Original Message-----
From: John Cummins
Sent: Tue 1/29/2008 11:35 AM
To: Johnny Petree
Cc: DivisionPartners; LubricationConsultants; Dallas Facility
Subject: RE: Bio Diesel
VERY GOOD QUESTION, because
No one knows what the gel point of biodiesel (B2 to B100) is!!!!!!!!
100 percent biodiesel - B100 - can have a gel point of +40 F, or even higher. When you are talking about B100, you need to know what kind of vegetable oil or animal oil it is made with: Soy, Palm, Rapeseed, Cottonseed, Beef Tallow, Pork Lard, New or Used oil, etc. Each one of these different feed stocks has different low temperature properties, oxidation stability, etc.
Example: A B2 biodiesel made from tallow could have worse low temp properties than a B5 biodiesel made from soybean oil.
Every petroleum based low sulfur or ultra low sulfur diesel fuels also have different low temperature flow properties - does the crude come from Venezuela, Alaska, Middle East, Texas, California, etc.
Example: High sulfur crude from Venezuela will undergo more severe hydrotreating and refining than crude from Texas.
There are also 4 different hydrotreating refining processes to remove sulfur to make ultra low sulfur diesel - each of these refining processes produce fuels with different sizes and distribution of wax compounds (remember the different "bell curves" of grades in school?) which also impart different low temperature properties.
Therefore, when you mix petroleum and biodiesel together in different amounts - B2, B5, B10, B11, B20, BXX, from 4 different refinery processes, from multiple crude sources it gets very complicated
Therefore: NO ONE KNOWS FOR SURE WHAT THE LOW TEMPERATURE FLOW WILL BE FOR ANY GIVEN BIODIESEL FUEL!!!!
The only statement that can be made is this: For blended fuels, "Whatever the flow rate was for the petroleum diesel component - it will be made worse by adding the biodiesel component."
The only way to really know is to test the fuel or biodiesel fuel with the intended fuel improver - Power Kleen Arctic, Power Flo, to determine the correct treatment rate. That is why we do diesel and biodiesel testing at no charge to our customers who use our fuel improvers.
Without testing, self treating your diesel or biodiesel is a (c r a p) shoot.
jc