Ethanol as a Fuel?

[somebody]

hey guys, some of you may be living in california and i am sure you guys heard that they are proposing a proposition about eliminating foreign oil.

 

In the advertisement, Bill Clinton takes an example of Brazil, where they use ethanol as a fuel.

 

Can some one explain how can we use ethanol instead of regular gas. Do they need to change car's feature in order for engine to use an ethanol as a fuel?

[hallenrm]

Not really! most often ethanol does not replace petrol (gasoline) totally as the fuel, it is mixed with it in a small proportion (say 20%).

 

Ethanol is an organic compound that is sufficiently volatile, just like gasoline! For more information read this article in wikipedia: Ethanol fuel

[Jay-qu]

There are buses here that run 100% on ethanol that is manufactured from sugar cane! I think its a great idea :( I am unsure if the engines are modified to use 100% ethanol though..

[Rebiu]

Brazil has been quite clever. I believe they fire their equipment to process the ethanol by gasifying the leftover plant material. In the US we us petrol energy to process the ethanol with no decrease in reliance on foreign oil.

 

The real answer is biodiesel. It offers much higher yields. The diesel engine was original designed to run on vegetable oils.

"The production of algae to harvest oil for biodiesel has not been undertaken on a commercial scale, but working feasibility studies have been conducted to arrive at the above yield estimate. In addition to a high yield, this solution does not compete with agriculture for food, requiring neither farmland nor fresh water."Wikipedia: Biodiesel

[GAHD]

Ethanol burns hotter than straight gas, meaning that piston engines have to be (slightly) redesigned for the higher temperature or you'll litterally burn them out.

 

Turbines shouldn't have a problem though.

[Rebiu]

Ethanol burns hotter than straight gas, meaning that piston engines have to be (slightly) redesigned for the higher temperature or you'll litterally burn them out.

 

Turbines shouldn't have a problem though.

This article says " Adapting cars to pure ethanol can be done relatively inexpensively by adding a fuel sensor and corrosion-resistant hoses, but there are only about 4 million flexible-fuel cars on U.S. roads out of more than 200 million."

[somebody]

haha, the way the advertisement was laid out, it seemed like if the proposition passes then we will make a switch to ethanol from gasoline.

 

so we can not use the same engine for 100% ethanol right? because if you need to use modified engine then how the hack they going to modified thousands of cars running in california.

[cwes99_03]

Ok, let's straighten some things out here.

 

1) some engine modification of older cars may be needed, as was mentioned this is pretty slight for fuel injected cars, and very simple for carbourated cars (they've been running full alcohol engines for years in all kinds of racing)

2)

E85 is usually used in engines modified to accept higher concentrations of ethanol. Such flexible-fuel engines are designed to run on any mixture of gasoline or ethanol with up to 85% ethanol by volume. The primary differences from non-FFVs is the elimination of bare magnesium, aluminum, and rubber parts in the fuel system, the use of fuel pumps capable of operating with electrically-conductive (ethanol) instead of non-conducting dielectric (gasoline) fuel, specially-coated wear-resistant engine parts, fuel injection control systems having a wider range of pulse widths (for injecting approximately 30% more fuel), the selection of stainless steel fuel lines (sometimes lined with plastic), the selection of stainless steel fuel tanks in place of terne fuel tanks, and, in some cases, the use of acid-neutralizing motor oil. For vehicles with fuel-tank mounted fuel pumps, additional differences to prevent arcing, as well as flame arrestors positioned in the tank's fill pipe, are also sometimes used

3) Brazil does sell 100% ethanol at their gas stations right along side conventional gasoline. The run vehicles with engines designed to run either (IOW they run engines designed to run ethanol as noted in wiki article, and those mods do not make it so the vehicles can't run gasoline.)

4) Ethanol production in the US is done much the same as ethanol production is done the world over. You use what you have available. You can coal fire ethanol production, even wood fire it. However, in the US there is a large supply of natural gas. This is particularly used in the midwest in ethanol production. Natural gas is not petrol as Reibu suggested. It is "mined" here in the US and doesn't not come from foreign oil wells. Other sources of heat come from methanol production at garbage dumps, and from the waste product of ethanol production (as it decomposes, or is eaten by cows, methanol is produced which can be reused.)

5) If all gas were to be made into e85, then we would supply enough oil to american companies to produce the 15% gasoline mixture, and sell oil to foreign countries.

[cwes99_03]

There are buses here that run 100% on ethanol that is manufactured from sugar cane! I think its a great idea :shrug: I am unsure if the engines are modified to use 100% ethanol though..

 

Hey Q, could you check that. Busses run on diesel in general, and there are busses that run on 100% biodiesel, buses that run on 100% soy oil, and busses that run on 100% marijuana smoke (JK, willie nelson's bus runs on biodiesel the smoke is for recreational use.)

[erKa]

Nazis during WW2 developed 2 high efficiency injection systems to be applied to aeronautical Otto engines as the 12 cils Daimler Benz DB-605 and DB-603 propelling the last versions of Messerschitt ME 109 fighter. The name of such injecting systems was MW50 and GM1. The nazi trick was in increasing power by injecting cheap and easy to produce in any farm alcohols like ethanol and methanol and a low cost oxidant as hydrogen peroxide. The final result was not only in saving petrol fuels but also in the killing of a lot US pilots of bombers in heavy gunfights at very high ceiling. These biological fuels were completely forgotten after the war.

[cwes99_03]

Possibly because of the scientific community rejecting Nazi scientific data? Or did they only reject data that came from human experimentation in concentration camps?

Anywho....

[Turtle]

Possibly because of the scientific community rejecting Nazi scientific data? Or did they only reject data that came from human experimentation in concentration camps?

Anywho....

 

How does this reconcile with both the US and the Soviet Union snapping up Nazi scientists and documents faster than an X-15? While the American Robert Goddard invented the liquid fueled rocket, what fueled our early space program was the acquisition of Wernher von Braun, his cohorts, and dozens of V2's.

[Jay-qu]

Hey Q, could you check that. Busses run on diesel in general, and there are busses that run on 100% biodiesel, buses that run on 100% soy oil, and busses that run on 100% marijuana smoke (JK, willie nelson's bus runs on biodiesel the smoke is for recreational use.)

sure :Waldo:

 

http://www.deh.gov.au/minister/ps/2000/psmr1dec00.html

[cwes99_03]

Interesting. Anybody know why they would choose ethanol over biodiesel? Wonder which one runs cleaner on mass transit engines like a bus.

 

I can think of one reason, and that is the massive production of sugarcane based ethanol in the country of Australia. I'm guessing there's not a whole lot of soybean farming down under.

 

In the continental US, however, there is a significant amount of soybean production (most in the world) and very little (if any) sugarcane production.

[somebody]

very interesting now it seem like U.S doing poor job by using gasoline. They should really try to alternate their fuel choice and make cars reguarding that fuel.

[cwes99_03]

Do you mean that the US is behind a portion of the rest of the world in using Bio fuels?

 

If so, then I'd say yes. Particularly when you investigate Brazil (not exactly one of the techiest nations in the world). Brazil has been using full ethanol fuel on a regular basis for years. Fully 75% of their new vehicles are flex fuel (capable of using any mixture of ethanol and petrol), and something like 45% of all vehicles on the road are flex fuel vehicles. Of course, 1) they have fewer vehicles on the road and 2) their politicians don't fight for the oil lobbies like ours do in the US, thus it was easier to make the transition.

[CraigD]

Anybody know why they would choose ethanol over biodiesel? Wonder which one runs cleaner on mass transit engines like a bus.

The choice of ethanol/gasoline blends or 100% ethanol vs. kerosene/vegitable oil blends or pure vegitable oil is determined by the engine to be used. Gasoline and ethanol work in lower compression sparked engines, like most passenger cars have, while kerosene and vegi oils work in higher compression, sparkles diesel engines, like most cargo trucks have.

 

An ordinary car in good repair will run on 100% ethanol or other high-concentration alchohols, but suffer long-term corrosion problems.

 

Blends of up to 15% ethanol are available in the US. In some states, such as CA and MD, blended gas/ethanol may be sold at any time without the purchasers knowledge – gas pumps bear a sticker explaining this.

 

In the US, one can buy a “dual fuel” vehicle with less corrosion-prone fuel lines, etc. A decade ago, there were government incentives to purchase these vehicles, which unfortunately ended in scandal when it was discovered that most people were buying them for the incentive, and never running them on alcohol.

 

The main technical problem with pure vegi oil fuels is that vegi oil solidifies at a fairly high temperature. So, to run a diesel engine on it, one must either heat the fuel system, or purge it with kerosene before shutting down. Both approaches have been successfully used, the second being more common, but both add considerable cost, complexity, and points of failure to the vehicle.

 

A blend of up to 20% vegi oil/80% kerosene doesn’t require these systems, and can run in any diesel engine. The fuel system shouldn’t have any rubber seals – fortunately, most newer ones don’t.

 

In warm climates, 100% vegi oil can be used, since it never get cold enough to congeal in the lines.

 

A financial problem with vegi oil fuel is that vegi oil is usually much more expensive than diesel.