Fuel purity is one of the most important factors in reliable and prices operation of various counters and flow meters, fuelling systems, engines etc.
During transportation and storage, diesel fuel may accumulate various contaminants: solid particles, paraffin, water, rust. These can damage fuel systems causing serious failures.
Modern fuel lines are equipped with special filters, which protect the mechanism from large and small solid particles. Filters are used in small filling station, oil refineries and fuel depots, which store large amounts of unpurified fuel in tanks.
If the tanks designed for oil product storage are not maintained right, fuel may be contaminated by products of corrosion and other contaminants. Below are the main characteristics of filters for diesel fuel. This information may be of use for selection of filtration device among the products available in the market.
Fuel filter characteristics
In the general case, fuel filters may have two to four filtration stages.
Coarse filters remove only the larges particles, about 100 micron in size. Such particles can be seen with the naked eye. Fine filters remove smaller particles, 15 to 50 micron in size. These particles are quite hazardous to the engine and the fuel system.
Separator filters
Beside solid particles, engine operation is also influenced by water in the fuel. In the worst case, it will cause failure of the high pressure pump and nozzles. To prevent this, separator filters are used, which remove water from the diesel fuel. Such devices are usually installed before coarse and fine filters.
The principle of separator operation is based on separation of water and hydrocarbons by density difference. Centrifugal forces cause the heavier water to flow down the walls of a vessel and into the drain.
Current separator designs can remove up to 93% water from the processed diesel fuel. These devices can also remove solid particles and contaminants from the fuel.
What can be used by smaller filling stations and fuel depots?
A mobile separation device can be used by small filing stations. Such device can quickly remove water from diesel fuel, gasoline, oil and kerosene.
A model with additional filtration capability of 1, 5, 10 and 25 micron can also be selected.
Clarification and purification of diesel fuel
For transportation fleets and farmers with daily use of 4000 liters of diesel fuel or less, a UVR-450/6 unit by GlobeCore can work quite well. This machine removes hydrogen sulfide, reduces sulfur and paraffin, as well as unsaturated hydrocarbons. After processing in the UVR machine, diesel fuel is highly stable to oxidation and darkening.
Beside restoration of diesel fuel to market quality, the equipment enjoys other advantages as well:
- simple loading and transportation to the location by a light truck;
- automatic and semi-automatic operation modes;
- maximum energy savings;
- versatility. Beside diesel fuel, the UVR units can purify other oil products just as efficiently: gasoline, kerosene, HFO, as well as transformer, industrial and transmission oils.
High purification quality is assured by using special sorbent and filters.