Abstract
The compatibility of biodiesel blends with five common elastomers (acrylonitrile rubber or NBR, fluorocarbon, neoprene, ethylene propylene diene monomer or EPDM, and silicone) was assessed using Hansen solubility parameters. A solubility analysis was performed over the full diesel blend range and the model used methyl hydroperoxide, acetaldehyde, and formic acid to represent the decomposition products of biodiesel. An empirical study was also conducted to determine the efficacy of the approach to predict the volume swell of elastomers. This study included the influence of biodiesel with acetaldehyde and formic acid. The solubility model showed good agreement with measured volumes for fluorocarbon, neoprene, EPDM, and silicone. However, solubility curves for NBR did not reflect the measured volume changes, and therefore the solubility parameters used for NBR in this study are not considered reliable. The results showed that formic acid caused higher swelling in NBR, fluorocarbon, neoprene, and silicone than did acetaldehyde. For EPDM, the measured volume decreased with both biodiesel concentration and the addition of formic acid.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 714-723 |
| Number of pages | 10 |
| Journal | Fuel |
| Volume | 233 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Dec 1 2018 |
Funding
This work was funded by the Bioenergy Technologies Office of the U.S. Department of Energy. This manuscript has been authored by UT-Battelle, LLC under Contract No. DE-AC05-00OR22725 with the U.S. Department of Energy. The United States Government retains and the publisher, by accepting the article for publication, acknowledges that the United States Government retains a non-exclusive, paid-up, irrevocable, world-wide license to publish or reproduce the published form of this manuscript, or allow others to do so, for United States Government purposes. The Department of Energy will provide public access to these results of federally sponsored research in accordance with the DOE Public Access Plan ( http://energy.gov/downloads/doe-public-access-plan ). This work was supported by the United States Department of Energy’s Bioenergy Technologies Office. The authors gratefully acknowledge the support and guidance from Jonathan Male and Alicia Lindauer, DOE, and of Tim Theiss, ORNL. We also would like to offer a special thanks to Scott Curran (ORNL), and Martin Haverly and Dave Slade (Renewable Energy Group, Inc.) for their ready assistance to provide biodiesel. The authors also would like to note that helpful discussions and insights were provided by Dr. Stephen Abbott, who manages the Hansen Solubility Parameters database and website. Lastly, this manuscript was greatly improved by the suggestions and comments provided by two anonymous reviewers.
Keywords
- Aldehyde
- Biodiesel
- Compatibility
- Degradation
- Elastomer
- Formic acid
- Hydroperoxide