linguistic:paraphrasing
Fuel types

In his 1893 work Theory and Construction of a Rational Heat Motor, Rudolf Diesel considers using coal dust as fuel for the diesel engine. However, Diesel just considered using coal dust (as well as liquid fuels and gas); his actual engine was designed to operate on petroleum, which was soon replaced with regular petrol and kerosene for further testing purposes, as petroleum proved to be too viscous. In addition to kerosene and petrol, Diesel's engine could also operate on ligroin.

Before diesel engine fuel was standardised, fuels such as petrol, kerosene, gas oil, vegetable oil and mineral oil, as well as mixtures of these fuels, were used. Typical fuels specifically intended to be used for diesel engines were petroleum distillates and coal-tar distillates such as the following; these fuels have specific lower heating values of:

Source:

The first diesel fuel standards were the DIN 51601, VTL 9140-001, and NATO F 54, which appeared after World War II. The modern European EN 590 diesel fuel standard was established in May 1993; the modern version of the NATO F 54 standard is mostly identical with it. The DIN 51628 biodiesel standard was rendered obsolete by the 2009 version of the EN 590; FAME biodiesel conforms to the EN 14214 standard. Watercraft diesel engines usually operate on diesel engine fuel that conforms to the ISO 8217 standard (Bunker C). Also, some diesel engines can operate on gasses (such as LNG).