National Institute of Standards and Technology scientists say the new apparatus for measuring distillation properties produces significantly more detailed and accurate data needed to better understand each fuel and its sample-to-sample variation.

Such data are valuable in tailoring fuels for high-performance and low emissions, as well as designing new fuels, engines and emission controls.

Petroleum-based fuels, with few exceptions, are highly complex mixtures of hundreds of distinct components from light butanes to increasingly heavy oils. The new data are important both for quality control at refineries and the design of specialty high-performance fuels.

NIST researchers say the current method of measuring a distillation curve in industry is subject to large uncertainties and systematic errors that make it difficult or impossible to relate the test results to thermodynamic theory used in developing modern fuels and engines.

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