Research report published: Limiting microbial degradation of middle distillates.

Microorganisms can colonize fuels and cause failures due to corrosion and filter blockages.

Due to the development in the field of alternative fuels, such as the admixture of esterified vegetable oils and of de-fossilized, paraffinic products like hydrogenated vegetable oils or synthetic products up to oxygenates to mineral oil-derived products, changes occur with regard to composition and product properties. The consequently increasingly heterogeneous composition changes and determines the "milieu" for possible bacterial growth.

BMWK-funded research project completed

The influence of fuels on microbiological activity has not yet been sufficiently systematically researched. The BMWK has therefore funded a project to investigate microbial contamination in conventional and alternative fuels.

The focus of the work was on the identification of growth-promoting and -inhibiting components and should enable the development of avoidance strategies. After around 3 years, the project work has now been completed and the results published in DGMK Research Report 823.

Research Centres

OWI - Science for Fuels gGmbH
RWTH Aachen Institute for Applied Microbiology Chair of Applied Microbiology
RWTH Aachen Institute for Environmental Research (Biology V)

The IGF project (20840 N) of the research association DGMK Deutsche Wissenschaftliche Gesellschaft für nachhaltige Energieträger, Mobilität und Kohlenstoffkreisläufe e.V., Große Elbstraße 131, 22767 Hamburg, Germany, was funded by the German Federal Ministry of Economics and Climate Protection via the AiF within the framework of the program for the promotion of joint industrial research (IGF) based on a resolution of the German Bundestag.