Any one wanting to read about diesel fuel this is one of the best documents I have found. Its a bit geeky but the section on addatives is very good. If you cant sleep this will sort you out.

www.chevron.com/-/media/chevron/operations/documen...f

Its worth noting that modern oxidation catalyst- DPF units use NOx to give a degree of passive regeneration. The NOx combines with the Carbon giving CO and CO2 and NO, further down the system in the SRC the CO reacts with NO to give CO2 and N. This is why on the motorway the soot can reduce or at least increase slowly even though the temperatures are too low to burn the soot. A bit of NOx can actually help.

As far as I know Shell add a quantity of liquified narural gas to V-Powe this may well reduce the cetane number but they say it improves the combustion process

Edited by Stanb Sevento on 30/07/2017 at 12:22

That stuff must add a bit to the NO2 everyone is screaming about .... :-(

Just like all the air that gets sucked into the engine - 78% Nitrogen, 21% Oxygen, 1% other gases. >>

Of course. But in EHN the nitrogen is already in the oxidised (nitrate) form. It's quite hard to oxidise raw nitrogen. What goes on in the exhaust system of a modern diesel, which among other things is presumably designed to convert carbon residues to CO2 ?

Nitrogen prefers (in energy terms) to exist as nitrogen, which is partly why ammonium nitrate makes a good explosive: main products water and nitrogen.

Edited by Andrew-T on 31/07/2017 at 12:38