Etymology

The word "diesel" is derived from the German inventor Rudolf Christian Karl Diesel (March 18, 1858 – September 30, 1913) who in 1892 invented the diesel engine.

Diesel Engine

Main: Diesel engine

Diesel engines are a type of internal combustion engine. Rudolf Diesel originally designed the diesel engine to use vegetable oils as a fuel in order to help support agrarian society.Fact: date=June 2008

Sources

Diesel fuel is produced from petroleum and from various other sources. The resulting products are mostly interchangeable in most applications.

Petroleum diesel

Refining

Petroleum diesel, also called petrodiesel, or fossil diesel is produced from petroleum and is a hydrocarbon mixture, obtained in the fractional distillation of crude oil between 200 °C and 350 °C at atmospheric pressure.

Fuel value and price

see: Gasoline and diesel usage and pricing The density of petroleum diesel is about 0.85 kg/l (7.09 lbs/gallon) whereas petrol (gasoline) has a density of about 0.72 kg/l (6.01 lbs/gallon), about 15% less. When burnt, diesel typically releases about 38.6 MJ/l (138,700 BTU per US gallon), whereas gasoline releases 34.9 MJ/l (125,000 BTU per US gallon), 10% learTable B4, Appendix B, Transportation Energy Data Book from the Center for Transportation Analysis of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory by energy density, but 45.41 MJ/kg and 48.47 MJ/kg, 6.7% more by specific energy. Diesel is generally simpler to refine from petroleum than gasoline. The price of diesel traditionally rises during colder months as demand for heating oil rises, which is refined in much the same way. Due to its higher level of pollutants, diesel must undergo additional filtrationFact: date=April 2008 which contributes to a sometimes higher cost. In many parts of the United States and throughout the UK and Australia diesel may be higher priced than petrol. Reasons for higher priced diesel include the shutdown of some refineries in the Gulf of Mexico, diversion of mass refining capacity to gasoline production, and a recent transfer to ultra-low sulfur diesel (ULSD), which causes infrastructural complications.

Use as vehicle fuel

Unlike Petroleum ether and Liquefied petroleum gas engines, diesel engines do not use high voltage spark ignition (sparkplugs). An engine running on diesel compresses the air inside the cylinder to high pressures and temperatures (compression ratios from 15:1 to 25:1 are common); the diesel is generally injected directly into the cylinder near the end of the compression stroke. The high temperatures inside the cylinder causes the diesel fuel to react with the oxygen in the mix (burn or oxidize), heating and expanding the burning mixture in order to convert the thermal/pressure difference into mechanical work; i.e., to move the piston. (Glow plugs are used to assist starting the engine to forewarm cylinders to reach a minimum operating temperature.) The high compression ratios and throttleless operation of the diesels generally result in diesel engines being more efficient than many spark-ignited engines.