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Diesel fuel has many colloquial names; most commonly, it is simply referred to as diesel.In the United Kingdom, diesel fuel for road use is commonly called diesel or sometimes white diesel if required to differentiate it from a reduced-tax agricultural-only product containing an identifying coloured dye known as red diesel.
Conventional diesel is similar to gasoline in that it is a mixture of aliphatic hydrocarbons extracted from petroleum. Diesel may cost more or less than gasoline, but generally costs less to produce because the extraction processes used are simpler. Some countries (particularly Canada, India and Italy) also have lower tax rates on diesel fuels.
The largest share of oil products is used as "energy carriers", i.e. various grades of fuel oil and gasoline. These fuels include or can be blended to give gasoline, jet fuel, diesel fuel, heating oil, and heavier fuel oils. Heavier (less volatile) fractions can also be used to produce asphalt, tar, paraffin wax, lubricating and
The American Petroleum Institute gravity, or API gravity, is a measure of how heavy or light a petroleum liquid is compared to water: if its API gravity is greater than 10, it is lighter and floats on water; if less than 10, it is heavier and sinks.
British Rail Class 55 Deltic diesel locomotive with their characteristic dense exhaust when starting a train. Diesel exhaust is the exhaust gas produced by a diesel engine, plus any contained particulates. Its composition may vary with the fuel type, rate of consumption or speed of engine operation (e.g., idling or at speed or under load), and ...
Fuels used in diesel engines can be composed of heavier hydrocarbon oils than the petrol or gasoline used in spark-ignition engines, making them less volatile with a higher flash point and giving them higher energy density. [21] They are therefore easier and safer to handle and occupy less volume for a given amount of energy.
Though it is still usually lighter than water (with a specific gravity usually ranging from 0.95 to 1.03) it is much heavier and more viscous than No. 2 oil, kerosene, or gasoline. No. 6 oil must, in fact, be stored at around 38 °C (100 °F) heated to 65–120 °C (149–248 °F) before it can be easily pumped, and in cooler temperatures it ...
The higher the energy density of the fuel, the more energy may be stored or transported for the same amount of volume. The energy of a fuel per unit mass is called its specific energy. The adjacent figure shows the gravimetric and volumetric energy density of some fuels and storage technologies (modified from the Gasoline article).