Contaminated fuel can cause you huge issues! Fuel contaminated with dirt, water, or biological microbes can offer reduced efficiency when compared with clean fuels, increasing your costs and lowering your productivity! In the worst-case scenario, your tainted fuel can cause serious damage to your machinery, or become so contaminated that you are forced to dispose of it. Both of these outcomes can come with a significant economic hit to your business.
This is why it’s vital to conduct testing of your stored fuel at least once every 12 months! Conducting regular testing is the best way to identify signs of contamination early, allowing you to rectify the issue while avoiding huge costs or high levels of wastage.
The signs of contamination in fuel can vary, and can come from multiple sources. If your fuel appears cloudy or speckled with dirt, or leaves a slimy residue inside your fuel tanks, these are sure-fire signs of contamination. If you can’t spot any visual signs of contamination, other signs include your engines struggling to start up, outputting reduced power, or backfiring.
If you spot any of these signs of fuel contamination, it’s best to tackle the issue as quickly as possible! Follow this simple three step process for rectifying fuel contamination:
- Uplift your contaminated fuel
Uplifting your fuel is a vital first step. Uplifting your fuel involves removing it from its tank, tanker, or barrel, in order to conduct a cleaning or to transfer it to another site or storage unit.
- Polish your fuel to remove contaminants
Fuel polishing is the next step. Fuel polishing is carried out through a cyclical system which funnels fuel from the bottom of a storage tank, through a series of filters which remove contaminants, and back into the tank at the top. As fuel is less dense than water and dirt, this system can remove all contaminants sat at the bottom of your tank, leaving you with pure clean fuel!
- Have your tank professionally cleaned
You can’t polish your contaminated fuel only to stick it back in the same dirty tank it came from. Identifying contaminated fuel also means you have a contaminated tank on your hands. Before you return your fuel to its home, ensure you conduct a thorough professional tank cleaning on the container it was previously stored in. This will ensure your fuel stays uncontaminated for as long as possible!
