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The fuel additives made by the big companies that have (or used to have) real chemists on their staff typically consist of more complex ingredients that fall into three categories: dispersants (surfactants), corrosion inhibitors, and, in some cases, biocides. Conventional wisdom in this business says that you need to break up sludge so that a biocide can gain access to the “bugs” that are causing the problems, and that corrosion of steel tanks can be prevented by using any of several corrosion inhibitors that slow down corrosion in water. All of that makes sense on paper — but it has never really worked well in the real world.

What we learned by years of trial and error is that slime forming bacteria (the kind that make sludge happen) are tough to treat with the above approach. They effectively hide from biocides — and can even turn some biocides into food! Even if the above approach worked well, bacteria in the environment tend to develop resistance to biocides over time. Those corrosion inhibitors that work against water don’t necessarily work against water and corrosive bacteria. The only type of corrosion inhibitor that works well in a fuel sludge situation are what are called “filming amines.” What we also learned is that certain filming amines also dissolve the bacterial slime that makes sludge stick together — and that certain combinations of filming amines stop the formation of sludge in the first place.

We take advantage of these things to use filming amines — at high enough doses — to effectively dissolve existing sludge, prevent new sludge, and completely stop internal corrosion of steel tanks — even in the presence of free water. According to our testing, no other additive (except one particular “biocide that is also a filming amine) can make this claim.