If you guys want the real story about jet fuel contamination from particulates, water and micro bacterial growth take a look at www.aviationpros.com on which there is an excellent description of contamination management, particularly tbat aspect, water, and how it accumulates and can be avoided and detected, and how it is related to algae growth.

If you have algae growth in your fuel , it means you have free water (not dissolved or entrained) in your fuel as algae grows on the fuel/water. interface.

in another thread someone mentioned adding Prist to fuel. That is a waste of time as its an anti icing additive. If you are bothered by algecides, as mentioned, Biobor is the stuff to use and is an approved additive to jet fuels. Jet A1 ( not jet A) always has antistatic. added. .

It is simply not true that the water content of fuel gets greater as it stands during winter SO long as it is not open to atmosphere. The ratio of entrained to free water may change but total content will not. The article explains all that .

It all makes sense and explains the difference between jeta and jet a1, certainly my preferred fuel. ( having burned about 60 million litres of the stuff and about 5000 litres on model jet without problems ) !

The article was just one of many I have read recently whilst preparing an article for RCJI on the subject, but it sums up issues which are relevant to us quite succinctly.

One other aspect worth mentioning, covered in other articles, is that algae does not grow in temperature below 10 c , 50 f.

Stroring fuel in low temps. has a further advantage in that as the fuel temperature lowers it can contain less entrained, disolved, water, so the water forms as a liquid and sinks to the bottom of the container so it can be seen and removed.

The accumulation of this free water, released from solution, might be why some peole think fuel can accumulate water during storage. In sealed containers it can’t.

For those intersted there’ s a huge amount of info about aviation jet fuels, published by fuel companies and aviation regulators, all on the internet.