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This is an explanation that was posted on YT-Mag in september of 1999. : : Distillate is simply the left over parts of crude oil after the more popular fractions have been distilled out! Hence the name..... : : Basically, you'd take the crude oil and heat it in a still. The different hyrdocarbons in the crude mix will distill out in order of their complexity.
: : Methane (one), Butane (two), Propane (three), etc. All come out in order as gas and are sent to storage facilities at the well sites (usually). The crude oil is a mix of all of the liquid (at normal temperatures) HC chains. If you heat it up, the liquids turn into gas, with the lighter ones boiling off first, followed in succession by the heavier ones. The crude oil in the still will settle out at temperature points, which tells you what fraction is boiling off currently. : : Now, since you want reasonably pure Gasolene, Kerosene, diesel, etc. you have a point where the liquid in the still is ramping to the next temperature point; you need to dump the output during the ramping into a different container. Once the temp. stabilizes at the next point, you switch the output to the pipes leading to the specific storage tanks (gas, kero, etc.) : : So, when you're done with this process you have a number of tanks containing specific grades of fuels, and an extra tank containing a mixture of all of the fuels. This extra mixed fuel was referred to as distillate! : : Now, you wonder where you can get it today? You can't! It hasn't existed since 1943! you see, the oil refining process was forever changed as a result of the Second World War! : : A process for making a barrel of crude oil into a barrel of gasolene was needed to fuel the war effort. The distillation process was replaced by the cracking process. : : Cracking involves a catalytic process whereby all of the HC chains in the crude are split in to single HC molecules. Then, these molecules are recombined into the required HC chains necessary to produce a specific fuel (Gasolene, Kerosene, Diesel, etc). : : This is why kero costs more than gas today. It takes time to convert a cracking plant over to produce a fuel. Kero sells far less quickly than gas, so the oil companies need to store it for a long period. It's also the cause for higher heating oil and diesel (the same thing ) if a winter runs long. The cracking plant is converted to summer gasolene production in the middle of the winter to ensure enough gas for vacation time. If the winter runs long, a plant needs to be re-converted to diesel production to make heating oil. This is incredibly expensive for the oil company, so they make it back on the prices. : : Now, you want to know what to put in that Farmall? Simple. Gasolene. In both tanks. It won't hurt anything, and the tractor will run better. If you want, put a cup of marvel mystery oil (or ATF - same stuff) in each 5 gallons of gas. Give it some top end lube. You could mix 50% gas, 40% kero and 10% diesel if you want to approximate distillate.....
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