Investigation of some physicochemical properties of number 10 lubes in relation to their environmental impact potential

External dependence for supply of crude oil and related pricing policies have given rise to the use of Number 10 lubes, which has been used as an alternative fuel to diesel in transportation and freight industries. In this study, technical characteristics and associated environmental risks of this generic product have been evaluated. A total of 30 samples from various provinces of Turkey were analyzed in terms of 12 physicochemical parameters in an effort to reveal the distribution of data and sample content. The results of the analyses have shown that samples do not comply with the related standards or the diesel/crude oil distillation products as stated in the related literature and do not have any production standards. The results also indicated the possibility of additives such as cooking oil, solvents, and illegal fuel together with base oils in the samples. Therefore, the use of such fuel having the non-equivalent diesel properties creates problems with the release of variety of pollutants to the atmosphere and hence threatens public health.