clorox bleach in diesel

I enjoy watching the evolution of the answers from beginning to end. Very, very interesting.

hipower.. Good question.. Water systems are made from either non-corrosive materials or plated metal or brass parts.. Diesel fuel systems are not..

Somewhat off the subject of the original post, but if bleach is so corrosive (?) in a fuel system, why do we use it to disinfect our water systems?

Won't it corrode the metal components of those systems too?

gatorcq wrote:
Why not call the manufacture of the engine for there recommendations?
That would be the first place / person I would ask. They may know something we do not.

I'd be calling a lubrication engineer, but better yet, I would have already had that tank drained and flushed by now. The bleach, 8 1/3 pounds per gallon, is going to be sitting on the bottom of the tank. Get it out of there, flush the tank really well, and have someone polish the fuel that was removed from the tank. I hauled lots of contaminated diesel fuel back to refineries to be filtered and re-refined. It does not take a lot of any type of product to alter the properties of diesel fuel. Two gallons of additive is what is used to "brand" 7500 gallons of diesel fuel. And those two gallons do make very big changes to the end product diesel fuel.

1 cup in 90gal = .07% (7 one hundredths of one percent)

I would be shocked if this would cause big trouble in an engine that sucks a full gallon of fuel through in 6 - 8 minutes, going down the highway. If my math is right, 5oz of fuel goes through the engine in about 16 seconds at highway speed..... Everything also goes through both water separators and fuel filters on the way.

while it certainly makes sense to err on the side of caution, I'm thinking this was a bit of overkill. JMHO.........

HOWEVER.... I'm still trying to understand how it's even remotely possible to confuse the diesel and water tank fillers........ That one has me scratching my head. ;-)

Sure would like to know the real answer. Is a small amount of bleach, 1 cup, in 90 gals of diesel harmful to the point of catastrophic repairs required or could it have been simply taken care of by using fuel additives and not a cause for real concern.

HR You did save the fuel? Now that you have your tank clear of the bad fuel, Contact your engine company and see what they have to say. Never now you might be able to make some use out of the fuel you removes. Just a thought. Gary

I know this is after the fact.

To me, the big question is, will the chlorine stay in the water or combine with the fuel? Many of you seem to assume that it will stay in the water. I do not know. Should be an easy question to answer for a chemist. Any chemist on the forum?

You did the right thing to get it out of the tank ASAP.
Those who would have just run it through and let the filter/water separator pull it out are not too smart IMHO. Glad you didn't follow their advice.

well this was educational and very interesting too. gatorcq, if corrosion was going to happen it starts pretty quick (so I've read). Hr needed to move fast, waiting till Monday perhaps would have been too late.