A new primary fuel solution for determining cetane number and derived cetane number

Did you know that by using pentamethyl heptane (PMH) and n-Cetane as Primary Reference Fuels (PRFs) you can directly replace the T and U Fuels as a standard for the measurement of Cetane Number (CN) fuel in accordance with ASTM® D613 and Derived Cetane Number (DCN) in accordance with ASTM® D6890?

The diesel fuel industry today continues to be burdened by the complex program of producing and validating T and U secondary fuel pair batches every one to two years for use in the measurement of cetane number and derived cetane number.

Since PMH can be produced in large quantities and at a reasonable cost compared to heptamethylnonane (HMN), it is an ideal replacement for the secondary T and U fuels that are currently being used for standardising diesel fuel combustion characteristics. The process of producing secondary T and U fuels is complicated and also involves the use of a difficult to procure HMN required to calibrate the fuels.

The key advantage of using PMH instead of secondary reference fuel (SRF) T & U is that PMH can be used directly as a primary standard for the measurement of CN and DCN. As a result, there is no need to produce SRF T and U fuel pairs.

Additional benefits of using of PMH and n-Cetane is that they are pure compounds and are less prone to peroxide formation than SRF T & U. As a result, utilising PMH and n-Cetane will increase the sustainability of your operations by eliminating the left-over waste from the use SRF T & U fuels.

PMH is now in the ASTM® standard and is available from CFR Engines Inc. - a truly cost-effective alternative to using SRF T and U when conducting cetane and derived cetane measurements in accordance too ASTM® D613 and ASTM® D6890.