H2O removal from diesel and JP8 fuels: A comparison study between synthetic and natural dehydration agents

The comparison between Thermal Polyaspartate Anion, TPA, and natural resin in their effect on the improvement of the physicochemical properties of both conventional diesel and JP8 fuels is the main scope of this work. Specifically, both studied materials were used dehydration agents in order to increase the physicochemical properties of both treated fuels. The higher amount of the removed water was obtained when used the natural resin as adsorbent material. In this case the water concentration decreased into diesel up to 68.66 % and more than 30 % in the case of jet fuel (JP8). This water removal improves the studied physicochemical properties of both studied fuels, diesel and JP8, for example up to 633 J/g (using natural resin as dehydration agent (removable additive)) and 1040 J/g (using TPA as dehydration agent) for the heat of combustion. Overall, the proposed method can be used in a simple fuel cleaning process using a metal mesh vessel of synthetic TPA polymer or natural resin. The higher water/humidity removal amount in conjunction with the very low price of the natural resin makes this material more promising for the up scaling of the proposed technique in the near future.