now that i’m thinking about it: not zinc, but maybe manganese. if you add a little of ferrocene to diesel, it’ll burn (ie on a wick) without soot. ferrocene here works as a source of small amounts of very fine iron oxide particles, which catalyze burning of soot. manganese could work like this, but this works only if you provide enough air in the first place
the fact that this also works for rocket fuels made ferrocene a highly watched substance in cold war (alternative is very fine iron oxide - but you need more of it. this is used in space shuttle solid fuel)
now that i’m thinking about it: not zinc, but maybe manganese. if you add a little of ferrocene to diesel, it’ll burn (ie on a wick) without soot. ferrocene here works as a source of small amounts of very fine iron oxide particles, which catalyze burning of soot. manganese could work like this, but this works only if you provide enough air in the first place
the fact that this also works for rocket fuels made ferrocene a highly watched substance in cold war (alternative is very fine iron oxide - but you need more of it. this is used in space shuttle solid fuel)