Sulfur Community

 To survive with the new ULSD standard, the National Oilheat Research Alliance met in September to redefine itself in light of new environmental policy and change.  John Huber, the president says, “The oilheat industry views itself in a timeframe in which it needs to reinvent itself, what with legislation on climate change, global warming and carbon caps.”  Including 20 percent biodiesel may be just the long term solution.  The result of the Baltimore meeting was an industry commitment to reach 2 percent biodiesel saturation in the nation’s heating oil supply by July, stipulating to steadily increase it in the years to come, and significantly lowering the amount of sulfur in heating oil.

Lowering Sulfur

Incrementally raising the biodiesel component in heating oil is one important part of the oilheat industry’s new charge, but the other aspect is the drive to lower sulfur content. On fuel cleanliness and systems efficiency, the effect of reducing sulfur content in heating oil is nothing short of tremendous. “At 3,000 ppm, we’re putting a lot of SO2 in the air,” Burke says. Also, nearly all of the carcinogenic particulate matter (2.5 micron) strewn into the air from oilheat chimneys populating the Northeast and elsewhere is a result of sulfur content. Another issue is sulfuric acid production. “Sulfuric acid condenses at 200 degrees,” Hedden says. “One of the problems is that we have to keep the exhaust temperature so high at the top of the chimney [to prevent sulfuric acid from condensing], and there’s a cost to that,” meaning heat loss via the flue and the monetary and energy loss associated with it. “If we can get rid of sulfur, we can do some pretty creative things to lower the exhaust temperature of the exhaust gas.”

When the burner of an oil furnace starts, there is sulfur in the heat exchanger, which results in scaling. “Scale decreases efficiencies,” Hedden says. “ULSD won’t have that degradation of efficiencies, which is about 2 percent per year, and that would save money on maintenance and there’ll be a gain in efficiency.” The 15 ppm sulfur will not contribute to system degradation and therefore less fuel will be needed to do the same amount of heating.

Huber points out that sulfur is a real obstacle for equipment design. “With ULSD you can use lower-grade steel for components, for example,” he says. New oil systems such as wall-hung on-demand boilers, which are used in Europe and are so small they can be cleaned in a dishwasher, are not compatible with high sulfur fuel oil.

Here’s something to observe in the next month as the thermometer drops in the northeast, will it be possible to import enough 15 ppm fuel in quantities large enough to satisfy demand while staying in regulatory compliance?

Read more at
“http://www.biodieselmagazine.com/article.jsp?article_id=3937 ”

By Paul Orlowski