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Old August 16th 04, 08:26 PM
Russell Kent
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"Jim Weir" wrote:
Two years of college chemistry does not a chemist make out of me, so let's

see
if anybody has the answer to this one:

Until we get around to making gaskets and o-rings that will stand up to

alcohol,
is there a cheap and easy way to chemically (or mechanically) take the

alcohol
out of gasoline? Yeah, I know that we could use fractional distillation,

but
that's a little beyond the average home kitty-litter filter process that I

was
contemplating.

Thoughts?


I guess you're thinking of something like SilcaGel (which has a high
affinity for water), but in this case we need a substance that has a high
affinity for ethanol but none for the hydrocarbons. Sounds like you need an
Irish liver. :-)

No, seriously, you might be able to use some of the laboratory-grade
semi-permiable membranes, if you can find one that passes ethanol-sized
molecules but not aromatic hydrocarbon-sized ones.

Russell Kent