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Old 16th-April-2008, 02:06 AM
Cricket Tragic Cricket Tragic is offline
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Spadlet, the first diesel engines were designed to use coal dust as a fuel. Later designs used fuel oils. The peanut oil story comes from the 1900 World’s Fair in Paris. Diesel later tested vegetable fuels and began to promote them as an alternative, hence the confusion.

As to biofuels, early diesel engines could burn on a variety of fuels, so long as they are liquid and flow quickly enough and provide sufficient lubricity.

You wouldn’t add a biodiesel to vehicle petroleum because it would not be volatile enough. Petroleum engines require not too much and not too little volatility. Ethanol is the preferred additive to petroleum for cars. It increases the octane rating (reducing volatility of the fuel). Too volatile a fuel will combust prematurely under compression damaging the engine. A fuel with too little volatility will not combust properly losing power.

Any motor engineering text will have more detail for you.
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