Diesel fuels: determination of onset crystallization temperature, pour point and filter plugging point by differential scanning calorimetry. Correlation with standard test methods

Abstract Differential scanning calorimetry (d.s.c.) has been used to determine the amount of crystallized paraffins and the temperature at which crystals appear in a diesel fuel containing no additive and submitted to slow cooling (0.5 °C/min). In the temperature range −30 °C to 20 °C the percentage of crystallized paraffins was responsible for pour and filter plugging points which corresponded to 1% and 0.4% respectively. It has been shown that ASTM pour and cloud points and European filter plugging points could be obtained in a single d.s.c. experiment with better reproducibility than standard tests.