How Long Does Kerosene Last? Kerosene Storage

Kerosene is a very useful and inflammable petroleum fuel. Mostly, it is used as fuel in our heaters, lamps, and electric generators. We can also use kerosene as a substitute fuel in a diesel engine because of its purity. It’s also used in our garages for many works. By this, we can see kerosene is precious fuel for us. If it’s so useful and needful then we should have it in abundance, so that we do not have to rush out to the market to get it in the end moment. For this, we should also know, after how long does kerosene get bad for use?

Does kerosene Go Bad

Kerosene has a long life span of two to five years. That means you can use it for two-five years before it loses its freshness. Till the time it does not get worse, it does not lose its power. That means its quantity does not reduce over a particular period, it’s just the bad viscosity and blackish flakes on the kerosene are responsible for making these negative changes in its efficiency.

One may say why does this life span have such a large range or gap of three years. This is because of how carefully and nicely you keep the kerosene which is underused and even the one which is stored for future use. Generally, the underuse kerosene that is present in the containers of the devices is much safer than separately stored ones.

According to some sources, kerosene has a life span of one year. Yes, it’s also true and honestly, it can also be less than a year. Again it just depends on the way and place you store it. If you will keep it in better conditions, it will give its services until the best time possible. if not, then accordingly your kerosene gets dirty very soon. Even before its life span.

Reasons for bad kerosene

Here are some reasons due to which our kerosene gets bad:

1. Putting the kerosene in a metal or a non-airtight container.
2. Putting kerosene in a too cold or too hot climate
3. Not closing the cap of the container properly.

Results of not these deeds

The problems faced due to above-mentioned carelessness:-

1. Putting kerosene in a metal or non-airtight container leads to oxide formation which degrades its performance.
2. Putting kerosene in a too cold or too hot climate also varies the viscosity of it which leads to its inefficiency.
3. Not closing the container or giving light to the kerosene makes it react with atmospheric oxygen to form oxides leading to its breakage.

Other than these individual reasons, any carelessness in kerosene’s storage results in the dilution of it, due to the water added to it. This is condensation. Even sometimes because of these miss carriages kerosene forms bacteria or mold sludges which causes its breakdown.

Solutions

Here are the solutions which will increase your kerosene’s performance, life span and also keep them safe in any environment:-

1. Put kerosene in an opaque, dark, plastic container in a correct study position. Although, keeping kerosene in the metal container is safe but since it forms oxides it may lose its goodness earlier than its expected time.
2. Put kerosene in a mild climate, not so hot and not so cool. This keeps its viscosity or liquidity in the correct state which gives its best working as a fuel.
3. Close the cap of the container tightly as it forms oxide and leads to its breakage.
4. Also, in addition to these things which tell the place and way the kerosene should be kept, we must do one more thing.

We should add fuel stabilizers once in a year for retaining its best potential.

According to precautions and care we take for storing our kerosene we get to know how long it will last. If we put it in the opaque, dark, air-tight plastic container it may not get bad in two to five years. If we do not do this our kerosene may not last for even a single year.

Can we use bad kerosene as fuel?

Yes, we can use bad kerosene as fuel by making it appropriate for use.

We do this by filtering the water in this bad kerosene as it just has simple bubbles in its bottom which are easy to filter out through condensation. We can filter the sludge present in the kerosene using a coffee filter.

After this, we put this filtered bad kerosene in the new fresh kerosene and use it.

Frequently Asked Questions