Diesel Fuel
Another primary product from the Klean coal gasification process is high grade diesel fuel. The United States produce over 140 million barrels of diesel per month out of which 78 million barrels are low sulfur diesel with less than 15 ppm of sulfur. CTL Diesel is an ultra clean high cetane diesel fuel with very low emissions due to the only having a trace amount of sulfur. The cetane number is a measure of how well diesel combusts in an engine. While refinery based diesel has a cetane number of around 55, CTL diesel is highly paraffinic resulting in a high cetane number of over 70. Furthermore, it typically has lower density than refinery diesel (.77 – .80 kg/Liter vs. .83 to .85 kg/Liter) resulting in clean fuel and lower density price premium over conventional low sulfur diesel. Low sulfur diesel is defined as diesel with less than 15 ppm of sulfur.
CTL diesel can be used in conventional compression ignition engines either in a neat form or as an efficient blend component for upgrading marginal middle distillate streams to on-road diesel fuel supply. Diesel fuel affects engine emissions primarily through its cetane, aromatics and sulfur levels. In all of these aspects, CTL diesel is of the best quality. It is expected that CTL diesel will be sold for a few pennies more per gallon than refined ultra low sulfur diesel due to the higher cetane value.