A Bit About Diesel Particulate filters For You

[CitroJim]

Chris, thanks for the AEC and RT background - excellent... My ex-wife came from Southall so I knew a bit about the old AEC works from her and her family... It's one reason Southall today is such a colourful and diverse place, most of the AEC workforce were sourced from South Asia in the 60s...

I used to love Southall... So lively, vibrant, colourful and always interesting...

Oh yes, the old original AEC diesels were never quiet. Then again, up against an HDi nor is a 1.9TD... It's got proper diesel clatter...

One of our transmitting stations had a pair of AEC bus engines driving the standby generators.. Quiet they definitely weren’t but efficient and reliable they certainly were... Quieter than the Napier Deltic powered standby generator at another of our stations... Seeing and hearing that Deltic fire up started my love affair with big diesels and that love affair is as strong as ever

Another of our stations had a Crossley marine engine driving its standby generator... That one was on compressed air start and just oozed character... It had a big cooling pond rather than a radiator!

Sadly, toward the end of the 70s all those old characterful generating sets were replaced with V12 and V6 Rolls Royce sets and they were almost totally devoid of character... Just brutally efficient...

[white exec]

A few years before I stopped teaching in Sussex, our school metalwork department was presented with a four cylinder stationary diesel engine. Not sure about make or capacity, but it was about 2m long. It had seen 38 years of service, pumping raw sewage from Horsham to Southwater, a distance of a couple of miles. I left before anyone got round to working on it.

[GiveMeABreak]

... It had seen 38 years of service, pumping raw sewage from Horsham to Southwater, a distance of a couple of miles. I left before anyone got round to working on it.

Probably a good idea too!

[Paul-R]

Seeing and hearing that Deltic fire up started my love affair with big diesels and that love affair is as strong as ever

Have you been to the Internal Fire Museum of Power yet? If not you really should go, they have some humongous engines there. I think I've mentioned it elsewhere before but here's a link http://www.internalfire.com/

They're mostly closed now for the winter now so you'll have to wait until spring at the earliest. I took my brother there in June for his birthday and we both enjoyed it immensely. I intend to visit again some time next year.

At the rear is a separate building housing some old Post Office phone stuff and an amateur radio station which is occasionally activated for special events and the like. Sounds like perfect day eh?

[white exec]

Sounds splendid, Paul - and what a title for it!
I like the idea of such a place being closed for the winter: hell does freeze over, then!

[CitroJim]

Seeing and hearing that Deltic fire up started my love affair with big diesels and that love affair is as strong as ever

Have you been to the Internal Fire Museum of Power yet? If not you really should go, they have some humongous engines there. I think I've mentioned it elsewhere before but here's a link http://www.internalfire.com/

They're mostly closed now for the winter now so you'll have to wait until spring at the earliest. I took my brother there in June for his birthday and we both enjoyed it immensely. I intend to visit again some time next year.

At the rear is a separate building housing some old Post Office phone stuff and an amateur radio station which is occasionally activated for special events and the like. Sounds like perfect day eh?

An utter perfect day out for me It's on the visit list for next year

Slightly back on-topic, one of our diesel generating sets had some early particulate filters as someone designed the main building air-conditioning intakes adjacent to the generator house exhausts When the generators were running the building filled with the smell of diesel fumes...

The particulate filters - called scrubbers - were simply a big tank of water in the exhaust just past the silencer... The exhaust gasses passed through the water and this removed the particulate matter and diesel smell quite effectively...

The turbulence in the tanks was like a tempest when the engines were running at full chat - RR V16 Turbo Diesels - but regeneration was easy; drain the tanks and refill them with clean water!

[falling-out-with-my-car]

Well st least you can run yours on veg oil Jim if she is Bosch pumped I remember being the only driver at 10 am on the A14 on Wednesday morning during the fuel protests all because of the ability to run on veg.nits nice to have the road to yourself.

[CitroJim]

No veg for me Nigel. Sorry... Veg oil is for feeding people, not for running vehicles on... I'm happy to see waste veg oil recycled into biodiesel - very happy in fact but I'm not happy to run a car on fresh oil...

Besides, I have no desire to have to rebuild my pump because of leaks and swap filters every five minutes...

[falling-out-with-my-car]

Ran mine for five summers and never once had to rebuild the pump. Its when you start using it with five and Tenn percent petrol mixes in the winter that problems arise. I'd hate to have to survive on veg oil think I might have the trotts with in 24 hours. I was under the impression that the first.idi Diesel engines were designed originally to run on nut oil. Going back to Paul's comments above I've often wondered why we didn't have a more simple method of cleaning up exhaust gasses and I also thought about vessels of water that the exhaust gasses could be passed through the trouble is how do you get rid of the mucky water? Without pollution and one other thing I'd like to ask a question a dpf has a ash residue when its life ends what chemicals are in that ash and how do they dispose of it? I think main dealers need to start talking to customers and being a lot clearer on what is going on besides passing the cost to the consumer. Fair enough we burn the fuel. But its supposed to be more environmentally friendly than it ever has been. Low sulfur and we now have catalytic converters on all cars along with fap or dpf. And they are still talking up banning diesels from inner cities now either we have been lied to on a grand scale or there has been a Lol of passing the buck from the oil barons who probably have the means to produce much cleaner fuels. Isn't it ironic how much nonsense we will take as a nation without ever raising a hand to ask why?

[white exec]

The fuel used for internal combustion is almost irrelevant. If the engine takes in oxygen (15% of air) and ends up heating it to high temperatures, this oxygen will combine with the nitrogen (40% of air) to form oxides of nitrogen. It is these that are harmful to health, along with the very fine particles also expelled, essentially carbon compounds.

Rather like the attempts to clean up coal-fired power plants - possible, but expensive and unreliable. Best that we all move on now, to something much more centrally manageable (clean power generation). We did it with coal fires, now we have to do it with transport, starting with our cities.

[falling-out-with-my-car]

Does this apply to natural gas as well?

[CitroJim]

Does this apply to natural gas as well?

Yes, to a lesser extent maybe but you're still burning a fuel..

Nigel, my other objection with running veg is the sheer faff.. For the miles I do the need to go to a wholesaler to get the oil in bulk, the filling and disposal of the old containers is just more trouble than it's worth. So much easier to visit a filling station and pump diesel straight in...

[falling-out-with-my-car]

Wholesaler? Tescos sell in bulk as do Asda and Morrison's. Mind you Jim I have no idea what it might do to a catalytic converter.and if your new xantia is an hdi 110 then it's impossible Like the C5. Each to their own mate. As for Burning a fuel even if we end up using batteries there will be copious amounts of sulphuric acid in them all harmful to the environment even if to a lesser extent. Polymer batteries is the way to go but they are still to expensive and lithium polymer have already proved unstable in aircraft cockpits so why would we put them in cars?.

[GiveMeABreak]

I wouldn't put any of that stuff into an HDi Nigel - unless you want a lot of bills. The additional sensors and computer control on these newer engines monitor so many things that it has been reported that the thicker oils cause havoc and can put the system into limp home mode. Sensors can be expensive and damage should not be underestimated. Fuel pump and injector failure are also at high risk due to the thicker viscosity of the oil. Something to do with long chain molecules that gunk up the system the more the oil is pumped through. Older diesels - fine, but not these modern engines that are engineered with very small tolerances.

[falling-out-with-my-car]

As a previous waste oil filter processor on a large scale in my large. Ish shed for about five years I am fully aware of the complexities of veg oil as fuel in hdi engines it is and always has been a general. Rule of no veg in an hdi system but you can still make bio from it if you understand the chemistry and at around 50p a litre it is attractive. Dangerous with sodium hydroxide and lye being mixed at high temperatures but do able.the only by product is liquid soap. I gave that all up a long time ago as councils started mussling in on the oil collections desdimating the suppliers of free waste oil.