Ethanol mogas

[john smith]

I was wondering if it is possible to remove the ethanol from mogas and
thought of the folling idea.
Alcohol binds with water.
Get a big tank with a spigot at the bottom, fill it with mogas.
Add water, aggitate, let sit.
The alcohol ladden water will settle to the bottom.
Open the spigot, drain the water.
You now have alcohol free mogas.
What am I missing here?

[karl gruber]

My old flight instructor and salt of the earth, Wally Olson, (owner and
founder of Evergreen Airport) did a similar thing.

http://www.wheretofly.com/evergreen/index.html

Wally kept the bottom third of his fuel farm tanks filled with water. That
way, he said, when there was a leak it was only water.

Karl
"Curator" N185KG




"john smith" > wrote in message
...
>I was wondering if it is possible to remove the ethanol from mogas and
> thought of the folling idea.
> Alcohol binds with water.
> Get a big tank with a spigot at the bottom, fill it with mogas.
> Add water, aggitate, let sit.
> The alcohol ladden water will settle to the bottom.
> Open the spigot, drain the water.
> You now have alcohol free mogas.
> What am I missing here?

[Robert M. Gary]

Would that then make it legal to run mogas with the EAA STC??? Would
the FAA have to approve your separation method?
-Robert

[Javier]

Robert M. Gary wrote:
> Would that then make it legal to run mogas with the EAA STC??? Would
> the FAA have to approve your separation method?

I think the answers are yes, and what would the FAA care about anyway,
this is MoGas.

-jav

[[email protected]]

Robert M. Gary > wrote:
> Would that then make it legal to run mogas with the EAA STC??? Would
> the FAA have to approve your separation method?
> -Robert

If anybody cared, I would think you could make a strong case for this
being nothing more than filtering to remove contaminates.

On the other hand, common sense and regulation are generally mutually
exclusive.

--
Jim Pennino

Remove .spam.sux to reply.

[nrp]

Don't try this on anything above a cheap lawnmower. The octane of the
resulting fuel will be reduced substantially, assuming you could even
get all the water out of solution. Remember that as the fuel is
further chilled, more dissolved water will come out, too. Don't even
think of putting it in an airplane.

[Capt. Geoffrey Thorpe]

"john smith" > wrote in message
...
>I was wondering if it is possible to remove the ethanol from mogas and
> thought of the folling idea.
> Alcohol binds with water.
> Get a big tank with a spigot at the bottom, fill it with mogas.
> Add water, aggitate, let sit.
> The alcohol ladden water will settle to the bottom.
> Open the spigot, drain the water.
> You now have alcohol free mogas.
> What am I missing here?

The remaning gasoline isn't the same as what you would buy if you got
gasoline without ethanol - gasoline with ethanol is blended taking in
account the fact that ethanol will be added. (octane, distillation curves,
etc.) Then there is the question of additives - would they stay with the
gasoline, or with the ethanol?

--
Geoff
The Sea Hawk at Wow Way d0t Com
remove spaces and make the obvious substitutions to reply by mail
When immigration is outlawed, only outlaws will immigrate.

[Mike Noel]

I think alcohol is a polar-covalent solvent that tends to hold water in
solution with gasoline. I suspect instead of getting the alchohol out, you
would be suspending water in the fuel that you would not be able to drain.

On the other hand, if you have an engine that can burn alcohol, perhaps some
amount of water in the alcohol could boost the performance of the engine ala
water injection in old military aircraft. You could turn some of that
wasted heat into steam before dumping it out the exhaust.

--
Best Regards,
Mike
http://photoshow.comcast.net/mikenoel
"john smith" > wrote in message
...
>I was wondering if it is possible to remove the ethanol from mogas and
> thought of the folling idea.
> Alcohol binds with water.
> Get a big tank with a spigot at the bottom, fill it with mogas.
> Add water, aggitate, let sit.
> The alcohol ladden water will settle to the bottom.
> Open the spigot, drain the water.
> You now have alcohol free mogas.
> What am I missing here?

[RK Henry]

On Thu, 27 Apr 2006 16:07:24 GMT, john smith > wrote:

>I was wondering if it is possible to remove the ethanol from mogas and
>thought of the folling idea.
>Alcohol binds with water.
>Get a big tank with a spigot at the bottom, fill it with mogas.
>Add water, aggitate, let sit.
>The alcohol ladden water will settle to the bottom.
>Open the spigot, drain the water.
>You now have alcohol free mogas.
>What am I missing here?

If the alcohol is being used to help boost the octane, which is a
common tactic by oil companies using alcohol, the mogas with alcohol
removed may no longer meet your engine's octane needs.

RK Henry

[Robert M. Gary]

> I think the answers are yes, and what would the FAA care about anyway, this is MoGas.

Oh, boy the FAA would care. Just to run the mogas you have to have the
STC. Since the STC prohibits using gas with Ethenal they may be
interested in how you got it out.

[M]

Mike Noel wrote:
> I think alcohol is a polar-covalent solvent that tends to hold water in
> solution with gasoline. I suspect instead of getting the alchohol out, you
> would be suspending water in the fuel that you would not be able to drain.
>

That doesn't sound likely. Otherwise the popular method of alcohol
testing wouldn't work. You can test test the presence of alcohol in
gasoline by mixing gasoline with some water in a test tube, agitate the
tube, and check to see if the water level rises.

> On the other hand, if you have an engine that can burn alcohol, perhaps some
> amount of water in the alcohol could boost the performance of the engine ala
> water injection in old military aircraft. You could turn some of that
> wasted heat into steam before dumping it out the exhaust.

I never quite understood why injecting water into engine will increase
its performance. I have no doubt it's true that Boeing used to do that
on their jet engines. Anyone here can provide a scientific answer?

[Icebound]

"M" > wrote in message
oups.com...
>
steam before dumping it out the exhaust.
>
> I never quite understood why injecting water into engine will increase
> its performance. I have no doubt it's true that Boeing used to do that
> on their jet engines. Anyone here can provide a scientific answer?
>


http://www.rfc.ca/NewSite/You_asked.htm

Double whammy:

1. cools intake, makes an effect similar to octane increase

2. steam expansion in combustion chamber adds volume (ie: power).

[Icebound]

"M" > wrote in message
ups.com...
>
> Icebound wrote:
>
>> http://www.rfc.ca/NewSite/You_asked.htm
>>
....
>>
>> 2. steam expansion in combustion chamber adds volume (ie: power).
>
> This sounds dubious to me. It sounds like a violation of second law of
> thermodynamics. It takes energy to turn water into steam, and that
> steam gives that energy back by expansion, but not more than the energy
> it absorbs to vaporize in the first place.
>

They could be arguing that the heat needed to vaporize the water would
otherwise have been lost anyway.... into the exhaust gases, or into heating
the metal of the engine, for example.

[Mike Noel]

The physical details of the process may be a bit murky, but the idea that
the temperature of the engine exhaust and the engine itself would be lower
gives a bigger DeltaT that should be converted into mechanical energy to
pull the plane.

--
Best Regards,
Mike
http://photoshow.comcast.net/mikenoel
"Icebound" > wrote in message
...
>
> "M" > wrote in message
> ups.com...
>>
>> Icebound wrote:
>>
>>> http://www.rfc.ca/NewSite/You_asked.htm
>>>
> ...
>>>
>>> 2. steam expansion in combustion chamber adds volume (ie: power).
>>
>> This sounds dubious to me. It sounds like a violation of second law of
>> thermodynamics. It takes energy to turn water into steam, and that
>> steam gives that energy back by expansion, but not more than the energy
>> it absorbs to vaporize in the first place.
>>
>
> They could be arguing that the heat needed to vaporize the water would
> otherwise have been lost anyway.... into the exhaust gases, or into
> heating the metal of the engine, for example.
>
>
>

[M]

I wonder if this is not done more in all the internal combustion
engines, if it can truely increase thermo efficiency?

[Capt. Geoffrey Thorpe]

"M" > wrote in message
ups.com...
>
> Icebound wrote:
>
>> http://www.rfc.ca/NewSite/You_asked.htm
>>
>> Double whammy:
>>
>> 1. cools intake, makes an effect similar to octane increase
>
> I found this http://www.rallycars.com/Cars/WaterInjection.html. So the
> benefit of #1 is obvious.
>
>>
>> 2. steam expansion in combustion chamber adds volume (ie: power).
>
> This sounds dubious to me. It sounds like a violation of second law of
> thermodynamics. It takes energy to turn water into steam, and that
> steam gives that energy back by expansion, but not more than the energy
> it absorbs to vaporize in the first place.
>

The heat absorbed by the water reduces the peak temperatures and allows the
engine to be run at a higher boost / spark advance / compression ratio
without detonation. To take advantage of the water injection, you have to
make actual changes to the engine - just adding water to an engine that is
not being limited doesn't give much benifit.

There are some efficiencies due to the specific heat of water and/or the
ratio of specific heats at constant pressure vs constant volume - but I
don't recall the details off the top of my head, and I'm too lazy to go look
it up (reference books are at work, and I ain't).

The downside, of course, is that if you _need_ the water to suppresss
detonation and your water tank is empty or frozen you can kiss your pistons
goodbye.

--
Geoff
The Sea Hawk at Wow Way d0t Com
remove spaces and make the obvious substitutions to reply by mail
When immigration is outlawed, only outlaws will immigrate.

[[email protected]]

: I never quite understood why injecting water into engine will increase
: its performance. I have no doubt it's true that Boeing used to do that
: on their jet engines. Anyone here can provide a scientific answer?

As others have said, it's not that the water increases its performance.
Rather, it's that the water allows operation under conditions that would otherwise
destroy the engine (in particular, lots of turbo/supercharge boost). It's analogous
to higher octane fuel. Higher octane fuel does not increase performance. Rather, it
allows the engine to be tuned to a higher compression ratio without destroying itself
from detonation. The higher CR is what increases performance.

-Cory

--

************************************************** ***********************
* Cory Papenfuss, Ph.D., PPSEL-IA *
* Electrical Engineering *
* Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University *
************************************************** ***********************