Confusing Misinformation About Diesel Regens

[Deleted User 38384]

The Tractor with the route I'm on at work today is doing a Regen, and I'm trying to explain to the driver why we shouldn't be down stacking beer in that plume of noxious gases. He's telling me it's just water vapor and nitrogen gas which for the most part is harmless to humans.

I was trying to explain to him that there could also be ammonia gas in there.

It's one of those things where the people selling the idea that regens are actually good for the environment, aren't telling you the whole story.

If you do a Google search for what the runoff of a Diesel Regen is, you might get an answer like this:

However if you've ever experienced firsthand the gas that comes out of a diesel's regen cycle, and you ask Google a different question that should result in the same answer, but doesn't, your search result might look something like this:

The simple answer is, not all of the ammonia from the urea / DEF process is going to burn off during the transference process. In fact quite a bit of it can reach your lungs if you breathe in this smoke. Don't believe me? Next time your EcoDiesel is regening, without breathing, go put your face over by the exhaust pipe. Not in direct path of the exhaust flow, but just off to the side will do the trick. The second your eyes start burning, and if you breathe in any little bit you'll start coughing... THAT'S AMMONIA!!!

If you're not aware of this, and you have a leak in your exhaust that is venting into the cabin of your Wrangler, You may not even know it, but the second year vehicle regens, you'll be wondering why the hell you can't breathe. In that case, the obvious choice would be to roll down the windows until you can stop the vehicle and safely get out of the vehicle until the regen process is done.

Be aware, that long bouts, or continued bouts of inhalation of ammonia gas, can kill you. It takes about 30 minutes of breathing in your Regen smoke before you'll actually receive a potentially lethal dose. Which if you're going to sit there and have trouble breathing for 30 minutes, you probably had it coming; Something in there about Darwinism.

After I showed this information to my driver, he decided he didn't care. So we agreed that he down stacks and I roll in..



Obviously there are going to be different amounts of ammonia for different vehicles:

If you have a clean and healthy diesel engine that has short passive regens often, you'll probably have more ammonia simply because there's less cleaning needed, but still the same amount of urea going through the system.

Whereas if you have a dirty engine that does mostly long active regions, you'll probably smell less ammonia in your exhaust. Again simply because you have a dirtier system, and more of that ammonia is getting used up and converted during the cleaning process.

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[BDinTX]

Wow nice informative post. Who are you and what did you do with Treds?!?

 

[Ratbert]

Yours actually smells like bleach? Yeah, that'd be disconcerting.

 

[Deleted User 38384]

Yours actually smells like bleach? Yeah, that'd be disconcerting.

 

[Tread4Lo]

I usually put a big balloon over my tail pipe. Once it's full , I tie it up, attached a string and let it go into the air. I figure it's better to displace from my location whatever is coming out of the tail pipe.

All joking aside, I'm pretty sure we all agree the whole thought process is founded on IMCOMPLETE data or maybe just selective data.

All it takes from you is $1,500 CAD and you can be switched over. Red pill vs Blue pill.

 

[IceBerg]

I already knew DEF was bad for the env when I saw all the single use plastics that had to be produced and then trucked all over the country.

Total scam

 

[Badunit]

AI sucks.

Regneration of a DPF is turning the trapped soot into ash and the ash is exiting the tailpipe. A little bit of ammonia is the least of my concerns.

Chlorine is what smells like bleach (actually it is the other way around); ammonia is the smell of Window cleaner. Why would the exhaust smell like chlorine instead of ammonia when there is no chlorine present? My Ram smells like burning rubber during an active regen, if I'm sitting still.

I've heard that the ash produced from a DPF is worse than soot because 1) it floats in the air longer because it is lighter and 2) it can get deeper into your lungs because the particles are smaller. Lighter stuff floating around longer for you and everyone else to breath it in and it gets deeper into your lungs. Doesn't sound good. Might just be mumbo jumbo, though. I don't know, and I don't recall reading anything about which end product is worse for you overall (maybe soot is a health risk but ash is less harmful).

Anyway, AI sucks.

 

[Deleted User 38384]

AI sucks.

Regneration of a DPF is turning the trapped soot into ash and the ash is exiting the tailpipe. A little bit of ammonia is the least of my concerns.

Chlorine is what smells like bleach (actually it is the other way around); ammonia is the smell of Window cleaner. Why would the exhaust smell like chlorine instead of ammonia when there is no chlorine present? My Ram smells like burning rubber during an active regen, if I'm sitting still.

I've heard that the ash produced from a DPF is worse than soot because 1) it floats in the air longer because it is lighter and 2) it can get deeper into your lungs because the particles are smaller. Lighter stuff floating around longer for you and everyone else to breath it in and it gets deeper into your lungs. Doesn't sound good. Might just be mumbo jumbo, though. I don't know, and I don't recall reading anything about which end product is worse for you overall (maybe soot is a health risk but ash is less harmful).

Anyway, AI sucks.

Yeah I agree, AI definitely isn't the greatest. That's why I like the drop-down menu from the Google AI abbreviated text. Gives you more thorough explanation of what it's talking about in the abbreviated portion.

Yeah in general the whole thing isn't as safe and healthy as they want you to believe. The reason I said it smells like bleach, is because it has a very strong, sharp, choking smell to it, but you can't ask Google "Why does my diesel regen smell like choking death?" If you were to, you would get response like this:

Spoiler

None of which tells you any of the information I provided above. That's the downside of search engines, depending on the quality of your search terms, you'll get a varying degree of helpful responses. My "bleach" related search provided a direction for me to go with scientific data. So whether you like the smell relation or not, it provided the correct information in the end.

Also too, the amount of ammonia in window cleaner is pale and comparison to the amount you will be inhaling if it gets into your cabin. I would be apt to say that most people don't have a full understanding of what ammonia smells like. Which is why hanging out by your tailpipe while it regens is such a great idea.

 

[tugs]

I've heard that the ash produced from a DPF is worse than soot

DPFs capture ash, they don't produce it. That is one of the reasons they eventually fail to regenerate. The walls of the substrate fill with ash and block gas flow. That is why it is preferred to use "low ash" lube oil.

An exhaust sytem without a DPF will dump all the ash into the atmosphere.

 

[Badunit]

I stand corrected. DPFs capture ash as well as soot. I don't know where I heard the mumbo jumbo I posted about ash.

 

[grimmjeeper]

I stand corrected. DPFs capture ash as well as soot. I don't know where I heard the mumbo jumbo I posted about ash.

There's a lot of confusing misinformation about diesel regens out there...

 

[Deleted User 38384]

DPFs capture ash, they don't produce it. That is one of the reasons they eventually fail to regenerate. The walls of the substrate fill with ash and block gas flow. That is why it is preferred to use "low ash" lube oil.

An exhaust sytem without a DPF will dump all the ash into the atmosphere.

Sounds like my kind of exhaust system!!

 

[Deleted User 38384]

There's a lot of confusing misinformation about diesel regens out there...

 

[ALeeL]

I am tempted to post here, but I figure it is best for everyone's sanity and my own that I don't.

 

[tugs]

I don't know where I heard the mumbo jumbo I posted about ash.

There is a lot of nonsense about DPfs and SCRs going around. For the past 12 years I have manufactured active DPF systems used on megayachts and have heard a lot of really weird ideas about diesels.

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