When it comes to the new emissions-compliant engines, OEMs are preaching the need to maintain clean fluids. But when it comes to the purity of your diesel exhaust fluid (DEF), the cleanliness specs are off the charts.
All it takes to contaminate a 5,000-gallon tanker truck of DEF is one-tenth of a teaspoon of a metal like copper, zinc, chromium or nickel says Luke Van Wyk, owner and sales manager of Thunder Creek Equipment. If you don’t know what a teaspoon looks like, those tiny salt packets you get in a fast food restaurant hold about a teaspoon. Now imagine one tenth of one of those stirred into a tanker truck full of DEF. Other contaminants such as iron, aluminum, phosphorous, magnesium, calcium, sodium and potassium can also ruin a tanker-full of DEF in amounts of two teaspoons or less.
The reason such small amounts of trace metals cause problems is because these elements build up inside the exhaust catalyst that turns the DEF and diesel exhaust into harmless water vapor and nitrogen, says Van Wyk. The hardware that accomplishes all this is known as the selective catalytic reduction system (SCR) and compromising it with contaminated DEF could create a host of problems including:
• Increased DEF consumption
• More pollution in the exhaust
• SCR system shutdowns leading to engine shut downs
• Damage to catalyst, which could cost tens of thousands of dollars to replace
