Petrol contaminated with diesel

[The Natural Philosopher]

Earliest IC engines were quite peculiar.

I THINK the earliest was the gas engine..designed to run on 'town gas' featuring red hot ceramic glow plugs to assist the ignition..a sort of compression ignition engine: that predates the diesel a bit I think.

Then I have seen paraffin engines: paraffin was in use for lamps from IIRC the mid 9th century onwards. Also alcohol engines. Moderm model aircraft engines are alcohol engines with glow plugs.

I would guess that te sort of kerosene/paraffin type fuels were in use before petrol was actually. The methane type gases from refining were a waste product and burnt off at refineries and oil wells for a long time..

[The Natural Philosopher]

It most ceratinly does not.

The rest of your statements are good though.

[Andy Champ]

Books are older than the German language. It's only printing that's fairly recent.

Andy

[Appin]

The message from The Natural Philosopher contains these words:

James "Paraffin" Young developed the first commerical production of petroleum in the 1850s, working largely from oil shale. It was he who was largely responsible for defining the point on the fractional distillation product should be taken off and paraffin was the point for the standard product he marketed most enthusiastically. The company also had a large business manufactuing new designs of lamps specially made to burn the new product to best advantage.

[The Natural Philosopher]

ah. fascinating. i note I missed the 1 off 19th century..bit of a blooper that. But thanks for confirming my gut feel that paraffin lamps were in use from about that time onwards.

[The Medway Handyman]

So, Rudolph Diesel sorted the engine in 1893, seems like Young sorted paraffin in 1850, I wonder when commercial diesel fuel became available?

[Grimly Curmudgeon]

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember "The Medway Handyman" saying something like:

It replaced expensive whale oil in lamps. Heating shale to extract paraffin was very expensive, but the lamp oil produced was being sold at a premium, albeit cheaper than whale oil.

When refining tech made it possible, I'd guess building on Young's work and others like him. Bear in mind, for example, in the early days of the motor car petrol was already in existence as a solvent and dry cleaning fluid and was commonly found in chemists. I'm uncertain what later became known as diesel oil would have been used for, if anything at all

- perhaps as a light lubricating or penetrating oil. Maybe even a purgative. It may not have been cracked off from the feedstock until there was a perceived need for it. Istr reading somewhere that early oil refineries were aswamp with products they had no use for - a lot of it would have been simply burned off or left in with the sludge. Diesel oil isn't a very attractive liquid at all, and it's hard to see it being in much demand for anything until Rudolph came along.

[Kevin]

the diesel engine was perfected 1897, I should imagine shortly after that, as the US brought the licence to produce the engines in 1897 and in 1899 a factory had been set up to make them in Germany

[<me9]

I doubt if it has yet been perfected, judging by the black smoke emitted by some modern vehicles, mainly taxis.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

If you leave London on the M4, pretty well all diesels smoke badly going up the hill where it goes derestricted. And most put their foot down.

[Cerberus .]

Don't forget buses. Many a time I've been stuck in traffic behind one on my motorbike listening to the tuneful sound of my engine 'pinking' whilst coughing my head off!

Don.

[Rod]

My recent experience has been that some of the heaviest diesel vehicles (artics and other heavy lorries) have been far, far less smokey than many cars and vans, etc. (Buses I find to be quite variable in the good to medium range.)

It is usually some poxy little car that makes me switch over to air recirculation.

Perhaps at the top of the ranges the panoply of control devices has actually achieved the apparent cleanliness we want? Or maybe the excess cost of the fuel wasted (when not burned as well as possible) is starting to make maintenance worthwhile? Or is it the London Low-Emission Zone regulations having an effect?

(And of petrol vehicles, it has to be lawn mowers and tiny, buzzy bikes that are worst.)

[The Natural Philosopher]

I am thinking back here..you know even WWII diesel was not the fuel of choice..German tanks used it, but ours did not IIRC. they caught fire most spectacularly.

ISTR that the R101 airship was supposed to have diesel engines, tha was mid thirties...

Marine diesels were I think becoming common in the 20's..as were stationary diesels..

So I would say there was a smattering of diesel about in the 20's and a steady uptake to the 90's.

Pre WWII even a petrol station was a comparative rarity.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Turbos help a lot. The problem is the diesel likes a lean mix. And to make it go faster you throw in fuel, not air. Turbos throw in extra air as well.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Pretty well any diesel that has been idling for a while - or driven gently - will smoke badly when pushed. Hence the way the MOT is done for diesels.

[Rod]

Absolutely - I was completely convinced of the benefits of turbocharging diesels long before I accepted they could make sense for petrol engines as well.

(Would a turbo help a 2-stroke lawnmower as well? :-) )

[Dave Plowman (News)]

The reason 'we' didn't use diesel was the desire of the brass to only have to supply one fuel to the battlefield, etc. Germany had a problem with petrol supplies but not so much with diesel.

[Rod]

I fully accept that. Still it seems to me that there are many small diesel vehicles that emit such clouds for long distances - sometimes as long as I am following.

[AJH]

The story goes that either Daimler or Benz was said to have been attracted to petrol following the case of someone cleaning clothes in petrol in a room with an open fire bursting into flames. This implies that some engines were already using gas and he was looking for a suitable fuel to allow mobile use.

AJH

[The Natural Philosopher]

Is that true for direct injection though?

No build up of fuel in the manifold etc..