Re: Bioethanol water mix (e.g. overproof Rum or vodka e.g. Stroh 80) as an engine fuel?

On 25 Dec, 16:41, "AndyW" <u40148@uwe> wrote:
IFLYJ3 wrote:
On Dec 18, 6:00�pm, "Doug McLaren" <dougmc
+usenet-20071...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
In article <fk4cde$v4...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
Glenn M�ller-Holst �<nom...@xxxxx> wrote:
[quoted text clipped - 25 lines]
Captain Zapp Brannigan : Kif, I'm feeling the Captain's Itch.
Kif Kroker : I'll get the powder, sir.

If I remember reading correctly ethanol will not provide the necessary
catalytic action to keep the glow plug lit, like methanol does. This
would mean either spark ignition or continous glow plug heating with a
battery to keep the engine running.

Here,http://www.os-engines.co.jp/english/bio_eng/we have a two stroke,
model aircraft engine from OS that runs on a pure ethanol and oil mix. I've
read that the plug has a special element but have also read that the only
thing special about it is a very high heat range to keep the plug lit.

You can get denatured alcohol which is 85% ethanol and 15% methanol. That 15%
is there to make it undrinkable and to avoid the high taxes on the stuff you
drink.

Here,http://ca.youtube.com/profile_videos?user=hopeso&p=ryou can see some
of the work I've been doing on alternate fuels, including Biodiesel.

I just recently acquired some denatured alcohol and will be trying this along
with multiple plug brands and heat ranges. Here,http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=_pN6-rgXEFkI was lucky enough to have spare
Norvel components allowing me to make up a unique head that allows for
compression adjustment on the fly. This will be most helpful in the ethanol
experiment as compression ratios are an important factor when trying
differing fuels.

And here,http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/m_6479059/mpage_1/key_/tm.htmis a
discussion about using E85 in model aircraft engines. E85 is pump ethanol
that's denatured by the addition of 15% gasoline instead of methanol.

It might well be safer to use synthetic denatured ethanol rather then
E85. It is perfectly easy to use a glo plug with an ethanol fuel.
Whoever started the nonsense about ethanol not reacting right with the
catalyst on the glo plug is nuts. It will react just fine. So will
lots of other organics. A few years ago someone talked about making
fuel from laquer thinner. His engines ran just fine. Laquer thinner
is a mix of mainly acetone and MEK generally. Maybe a bit of toluene
to slow evaporation. Such a fuel will give you a bit less power then
ethanol.

But the glo plug does present some problems. It is pretty easy to
poison the precious metal catalyst coating. E85 manufacturers are
going to put a variety of detergents in the fuel to help keep the
engine clean. They have been doing this with regular gasoline
forever. I suppose it will also have a dye in it so no one mistakes
it for water. These detergents and dyes could well cause glo plug
life problems. They would not cause any problem at all in a spark
ignition engine as such engines do not depend on any catalytic
activity. In fact they are designed to avoid catalytic things
happening. But in a glo engine the catalytic activity is what keeps
the engine running.

The other advantage of synthetic ethanol is it is not loaded with all
the fusel oils that might be in E85. Industrial fermentations are not
run at low temps like fermentations meant to produce booze, beer or
wine. As the fermentation temp goes up the amounts of fusel oils
produced also goes up fast. I doubt if the distillation process to
isolate the ethanol from the fermentation mix is all that great at
cutting out the fusel oils. I doubt it if for no other reason then if
it did cut them out they are a waste stream the corn fermentation guys
would have to pay to have disposed. So it is in their interest to
leave them in the ethanol as much as possible. These things would not
cause any problem in a spark ignition engine but might well cause
fouling in a glo engine. If they foul the glo plug you have a dead
engine. If you really have your heart set on being green at least use
solvent grade bioethanol rather then fuel grade. Solvent grade is
going to have fewer byproducts in it.

Synthetic ethanol on the other hand is made from chemical processes
that do not use fermentation at all. So fusel oils are not a
problem. And synthetic ethanol will only have the denaturant in it
which is usually methanol anyhow. Not a bunch of other added stuff
that may vary from brand to brand. The current price of synthetic
ethanol is about $3 a gallon. You would need to buy at least a 55
gallon drum to get this kind of price, plus of course add the price of
the drum itself.

You are not going to get as much power out of an engine running on
ethanol as on methanol. The amount of oil added to the fuel will make
essentually zero difference in how much power you get out as long as
it is adequate to provide the needed lubrication. The reason it will
not impact power out is it goes thru the engine unburned and
unvaporized so is simply along for the ride. The amount of power is
wholly dependant on things like BTUs burned per cycle and the
difference between peak gas temp in the combustion chamber and exhaust
gas temps. With ethanol you simply can not get as many BTUs per cycle
as you can with methanol. The reason is ethanol takes more air per
BTU of heat produced then methanol requires. All that extra air
decreases power output by limiting the amount of ethanol you can stuff
in the combustion chamber per cycle. But it is not a big penalty. If
methanol will run an engine at one horsepower then ethanol will
probably give you 0.85 horsepower. You could compenstate by going
down a bit on prop size and still run at an efficient rpm.


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