Description

Diesel fuel is produced from various sources, the most common being petroleum. Other sources include biomass, animal fat, biogas, natural gas, and coal liquefaction.

Petroleum diesel, also called petrodiesel is the most common type of diesel fuel. It is produced from the fractional distillation of crude oil between **0 °C (**2 °F) and **0 °C (**2 °F) at atmospheric pressure, resulting in a mixture of carbon chains that typically contain between 8 and *1 carbon atoms per molecule.

The important properties which are used to characterize diesel fuel include cetane number (or cetane index), fuel volatility, density, viscosity, cold behavior, and sulfur content. Diesel fuel specifications differ for various fuel grades and in different countries