FUEL ADDITIVES WITH LOW NOx EMISSIONS

This disclosure relates to compositions and methods of making an additized fuel composition comprising a base fuel composition and a randomly branched nitrate composition. The randomly branched nitrate composition includes a plurality of primary nitrate molecules, each molecule therein having an empirical chemical formula of CnNO3, wherein Cn is a branched aliphatic moiety which may be the same or different for each molecule, n is an integer selected from the group consisting of 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12, at least one carbon atom in the branched aliphatic moiety being bound to three or more carbon atoms, a branching index ranging from 1.8 to 2.2, and greater than 80% of the branches in the aliphatic moiety being in other than the alpha position. The additized fuel composition may be diesel fuel composition or a gasoline fuel composition. Such randomly branched nitrate composition may be more stable, and thus safer to handle than 2-ethylhexylnitrate and may have a lower overall nitrogen content, leading to lower NOx emissions upon combustion in diesel and gasoline fuel compositions.