BASE EXTRACTION TO REMOVE THE COMPONENTS CONTRIBUTING TO LUBRICITY IN A MIDDLE DISTILLATE FUEL

With increased environmental demands for cleaner burning fuels, the use of severe hydrotreating has become commonplace in many of the world's refineries. In order to reduce sulfur and aromatic levels, this hydrotreating has brought about the removal of surface-active species that afford a fuel its inherent lubricity. The result is excessive wear of engine component parts that rely of this lubricity. For over 10 years, the American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) has been working on establishing methods to adequately assess the lubricating properties of petroleum fuels. The currently accepted methods involve mechanical bench testing. In the present research, a chemical method, base extraction, followed by gc analysis has been investigated. This technique appears promising in correlating with the traditional methods used for assessing lubricity of middle distillate fuels.