471ISSN 0965-5441, Petroleum Chemistry, 2017, Vol. 57, No. 5, pp. 471–475. © Pleiades Publishing, Ltd., 2017.Published in Russian in Neftekhimiya, 2017, Vol. 57, No. 3, pp. 360–364.Diesel Fuel based on Mixturesof Petroleum and Vegetable Raw Materials 1Constantinos G. Tsanaktsidis a, *, George T. Tzilantonis a , and Konstantinos Spinthiropoulos ba Laboratory of Qualitative Fuel Control, Department of Pollution Control and Technologies, Technological Education Institute of Western Macedonia, 50100, Kila, Kozani, Greeceb Department of Business Administration—Grevena, Technological Education Institute of Western Macedonia, 50100, Kila, Kozani, Greece*e-mail: tsanaktsidis@teiwm.grReceived August 31, 2015Abstract?Сommercial petroleum diesel, distilled biodiesel and jet fuel JP8 were used to prepare the new fuelblend with physicochemical properties meeting the petroleum diesel standards. The proposed fuel blend con-sisted of 75% (v/v) petroleum diesel, 20% (v/v) distilled biodiesel and 5% (v/v) jet fuel JP8. The humidity ofthe prepared fuel blend was regulated using the distilled biodiesel. The key physicochemical properties of fuelsuch as density, kinematic viscosity, conductivity and water content were measured using standard ASTMmethods. The storage stability test for the studied samples showed that they remained unchanged even after30 and 120 days from the preparation moment. The suggested fuel blend composition may be recommendedfor the industrial applications due to the benefits of adding 20% of the distilled biodiesel. The composition ofthe fuel blend meets the European directive which proposes adding up to 20% (v/v) of biodiesel to the petro-leum based fuels.Keywords: fuel blend, diesel, biodiesel, jet fuel, physicochemical properties, water removalDOI: 10.1134/S0965544117050127INTRODUCTIONThe discovery of new sources of energy is a key goalof scientists and governments worldwide. Nowadaysthe global interest has shifted to the renewable energysources including fuels. Diesel is one of the mostimportant energy sources worldwide. However due tothe environmental concerns the other energy sourcesattracted great attention of scientists and engineers lastdecades. Some of these renewable sources are geother-mal energy [1], hydroelectricity [2], solar energy [3],tidal power [4], wave power [5], wind power [6], etha-nol fuel [7], biomass [8, 9] and different types of bio-fuel [10]. Biofuels are the fuels that contain energyfrom geologically recent carbon fixation and they areproduced from biomass such as plants or organic wasteor microalgae etc. These fuels might help to reduceboth CO 2 production and the world’s dependence onoil. Biofuels may reduce CO 2 emission because theirsources consume this gas during their growth [10, 11].Biofuels can be classified as first and second genera-tion fuels [12]. Biodiesel is a substitute for petroleum-based diesel and is produced through transesterifica-tion of virgin oil feedstock, waste vegetable oil, algae,oil from halophytes and animal fats [13–15]. Afterminor engine modifications the biofuels can be used asa fuel substitute with very good efficiency [12].Another similar biofuel, which is produced from com-post (manure) by anaerobic processes, is biogas, thecommercial fuel which is used for transportation but insmall percentages [16]. The main advantage of thethermochemical process is that it can basically convertinto hydrocarbons all the organic components of thebiomass. On the other hand, in biochemical processthe conversion concentrates mostly on the polysac-charides components [17].Biodiesel is similar to the petroleum-based dieselin combustion properties but presents various environ-mental and economic benefits. Biodiesel keeps oilstocks, enhances the agriculture-based economics andprovides political and economic independence ofcountries which do not have oil reserves. All theseconsiderations allow recommending biodiesel as analternative renewable transportation fuel.Biodiesel, regardless of the way of preparation andraw material used, contains free fatty acids, phospho-lipids, sterols, water, odorants and same others impu-rities. Even the refined oils and fats contain smallamounts of free fatty acids and water [12]. Because ofthese impurities biodiesel demonstrates the high watercontent and also high values of the kinematic viscosity.These are two major reasons for the limitation of thepercentage (%) of the biodiesel in the commercial fuel1 The article is published in the original.
