Reducing truck CO₂ emissions depends largely on the integrity of the diesel combustion process, which is directly affected by the quality of the fuel itself. Modern electronic diesel injection units have extremely fine tolerances and therefore require nothing but the cleanest possible diesel to pass through them to ensure complete combustion. Achieving this is no mean feat in South Africa's hot and dusty climate. 

According to Andre Steyn of iFleet, "upstream filtration is the answer. It is important to filter both fuel lines and breathers on diesel tanks, be they on the truck or in the ground. Contamination in diesel has a direct negative impact on lubricity and increases wear patterns exponentially or directly causes component failure. Some of the clearances in engines can be as tight as 2 micron in injectors at pressures of 1800 - 3500 bar; and in the combustion chambers there is a ring gap of 0.09-0.12 mm or 90-120 micron at pressures up to 230-280 bars. Contamination in the fuel can adversely affect the performance and reliability of the combustion components and this will affect the overall efficiencies, increasing carbon generation, heat, oil, emissions and fuel, not to mention shortening lifecycles and increasing downtime."

The iFleet 'depth filtration' product is based on a ceramic cylinder that "conforms to all the necessary filter performance criteria, like low resistance to flow, fixed high structural integrity, pore construction with non-collapse strength and reliable performance with vast dirt holding capacity and no chemical (water) sensitivity .The effective filter life span is remarkable, setting new standards in durability," says Steyn.