Testing of Syntroleum Synthetic Diesels in Diesel Generators Suitable for Alaska

Sulfur free synthetic diesel fuels can be produced using gas to liquids (GTL) technology, and may prove useful as a substitute for conventional diesel fuels when oil reserves are depleted. With non-detectable amounts of sulfur and aromatics, these fuels should generate lower emissions and enable catalytic clean up. This paper presents the results of a durability test conducted on a Detroit Diesel Series 50 diesel engine-generator operating on two synthetic GTL diesel fuels. Besides providing a comparison of diesel emissions, the paper also provides a comparison of generator fuel efficiency and brake specific fuel consumption between the synthetic fuels and conventional diesel. Documented emissions include total hydrocarbons (THC), carbon monoxide (CO) and oxides of nitrogen (NO_x). All tests on the diesel engine reported were conducted at the factory set injection timing. As the best performance of an engine on a particular fuel may be affected by injection timing, further tests of the synthetic fuels at different injection timings are needed and will be discussed in future work.