Diesel Fuel Quality Std & Filtration Service

[westend392]

My client wanted to reuse the diesel fuel that they are storing at an existing fuel storage tank for their new tank.

Can anyone recommend to me a standard of quality of diesel fuel for typical medium to large standby generators application?

If filtration service is available, can anyone recommend a typical filtration goal / std of quality that we normally have to achieve? I'm in South Florida, any particular vendor or service company that anyone can recommend for this type of fuel filtration service?

 

[powerwagon75]

Is this a large quantity of fuel? As for quality, if the client is determined to keep this fuel, then have an analysis done on it. A thorough analysis will give you the current cetane (= to octane in gasoline), amounts and types of contaminents, water, biological and fungal critters living in there. No point in putting nasty fuel into a brand new tank.

With analysis results, you can determine what additives to add in accordance with volume of fuel you have--items that "condition" the fuel such as stabilizers/cetane boosters, fungal and biocide treatments.

For transport to new tank, I would suggest someone who can drain old tank through some kind of filtration to catch the big stuff that may be at the bottom of the tank. When deposited in the new tank, any additives should be added during the filling process for complete mixing.

Check with some of your power generation vendors (ie;Cummins or Cat) to see if they offer advanced fuel cleaning. The distributor in our neck of the woods is offering this service now. They put in the additives, filter a recirculating system through the tank to remove water with coalescing filters, and finish off down to 10 microns if the fuel was pretty clean to start with. It cost a fair bit, but not nearly as much as disposal/replacement of 5000 gl of fuel would. [if you find someone who can perform this service, I'd recommend having them do the pumping into your transport vehicle, as they could put an initial 25 micron filtration on it for you during the removal.]

Also, if biological/fungal tests are positive, you would want the treatments for this added, and briefly circulated at the old tank location. Give it a week or so for the critters to all die. Then ensure whomever drains the old tank leaves the crud on the bottom, and pumps separately for contaminent disposal.

Eric