Fig. 6The viscosity of crude oil increases as the temperature goes down. For paraffin-base crude oil, when the temperature passes a critical temperature, paraffin begins to crystallize into tiny particles inside the crude oil, making the viscosity increase faster. This critical temperature is usually called the wax appearing temperature (WAT). From the viscosity measurement of our sample, the curve of viscosity versus temperature had a slope change around 17 °C (Figure 5). This indicated that our sample had a WAT around 17 °C. If the temperature went below 17 °C, wax particles began to appear and raised the viscosity faster. As shown in Figure 5, the slope change was not dramatic for our sample, indicating that the paraffin content in the sample was not high, about 3-4% in weight. Our experiment with magnetic field was conducted at 10 °C, 7 °C below the WAT to ensure the existence of wax particles inside the crude oil. As shown in Figure 6, the viscosity of our sample was 40.97 cP at 10 °C. It decreased to 33.1 cP after a magnetic field of 1.33 T was applied for 50 s. Afterward, the viscosity gradually increased but remained substantially below the original value 120 min after the application of the magnetic field. The original rheological state was recovered after about 8 h. If we apply the magnetic field pulse again, the same viscosity reduction pattern shown in Figure 6 was reproduced.
Now, I don't know much about magnetic fields, or the viscosity of diesel at various temperatures, and I've been up for a day so I'd rather not research this right now. But it's very interesting, because if 1.3T is doable with off the shelf equipment, and the drop in viscosity is enough to allow for free flow of otherwise gelled fuel, this could be a quick alternative to fuel warmers/etc...
