ethanol removal from petrol

[colin2296fs]

i've seen a few articles in magazines lately about homebrew kits for removing ethanol from petrol

http://www.ethanil.co.uk/

i know it's the ethanol that degrades fuel pipe and seals and stuff and causes corrosion in tanks, but is it also the ethanol that causes fuel to go stale so quick. if i make up a batch of this and fire it in the fuel tank how long will it last in there and still be petrol

[Riley Blue]

In my experience (leaving my Riley unused from October to April) fuel stored for up to six months doesn't go stale so if that's the sort of time you're thinking of and is your sole reason, you shouldn't need to do anything.

[ATG]

My snake oil alarm bells are ringing

[v8250]

How long? you'd need to contact your preferred fuel supplier as each has their own additives put into their final fuel blend.

Re' this product, technically it's a simple piece of kit but where is the average Joe going to dispose the flammable waste liquid? They'd need a commercial waste licence. Also, I'd be quite concerned for the average person being responsible for transferring fuels in this quantity, it'll end in tears...and singed eye brows. Surely the easy answer is to ensure our classics are fitted with E10 approved fuel lines rated to SAE J30 R6 for carburetters[low pressure line] SAE J30 J9 for fuel injection[high pressure line] and nitrile type based seals/washers.

[TooMany2cvs]

ATG said:

My snake oil alarm bells are ringing

Indeed.

Look, it's very simple. If you're worried that fuel system components are not going to be ethanol compatible, change them. If they really REALLY aren't, then they're either cheap st or ancient anyway, so it won't be a great loss. Accept the fact that ethanol is here to stay in fuel. It's been 5% max in petrol in the UK since unleaded came in in the 1980s, and it's staying 5% max for the foreseeable unless you choose to buy the E10 that's coming soon, but has been available in France for nearly a decade and is the standard in the US.

I'm not sure it's such a bad thing, either - the 5% ethanol comes from renewable sources, unlike the other 95%.

[PositronicRay]

I maybe wrong on this but doesn't ethanol provide a higher degree of anti knock (RON, MON, AKI or whatever)

[Allan L]

Riley Blue said:

In my experience (leaving my Riley unused from October to April) fuel stored for up to six months doesn't go stale so if that's the sort of time you're thinking of and is your sole reason, you shouldn't need to do anything.

I have left my Mors idle for longer than that and had no problem hand-starting it or running it when the time came.

ATG said:

My snake oil alarm bells are ringing

Whilst one may disagree with the presence of alcohol for all sorts of reasons, I doubt there is a simple way to remove it.
However as ethyl alcohol is miscible with water, perhaps you could try whizzing the fuel up with a good dose of water and then letting it settle. Then drain the water (and with luck the dissolved alcohol) away.
Oh, sorry that's what "ethanil" does once you get your head round the ideas such as an aqueous solution of ethyl alcohol being a weak acid - as in e.g. beer?

[TooMany2cvs]

PositronicRay said:

I maybe wrong on this but doesn't ethanol provide a higher degree of anti knock (RON, MON, AKI or whatever)

Ethanol does have a higher octane than "pure" petrol, yep, but at 5%, it's not going to be noticable, I don't think.

100% Ethanol has a RON about 120, from a quick google.
So 5% 120RON would add about 1.2RON to 95 unleaded, or removing the ethanol would take it down to a bit under 94.

[DonkeyApple]

In very simple chemical terms, you should be able to pour a load of water into your distilling tank, that will take up the hygroscopic ethanol which you can then tap off and sell as vodka to your local night club owner and be left with traditional petrol.

[Slidingpillar]

In 1928, Cleveland Discol was introduced to the UK. Basically petrol blended with ethanol although the exact proportions are somewhat of a mystery. Probably around 10%, but figures of 20% can be found on the web. A retired oil company chemist I know, reckons the percentage was lower, perhaps around 5%.

The kit should work, but a Mr Funnel is really all you need to buy. But, you will reduce the octane rating (ethanol is a cheap way of raising it) , and you may also remove some of the additives too.

Ethanol gets blamed for all sorts of things, old age in fuel pipes being the major one.

Lastly, is really safe to do? Plus, it's not legal under the petroleum regulations to have more than 2 gallons in cans (fuel in petrol tanks of cars doesn't count).

[Allan L]

Slidingpillar said:

In 1928, Cleveland Discol was introduced to the UK. Basically petrol blended with ethanol although the exact proportions are somewhat of a mystery. Probably around 10%, but figures of 20% can be found on the web. A retired oil company chemist I know, reckons the percentage was lower, perhaps around 5%.

Yes and it reappeared after the war when we were able to buy branded petrol again. In the 1950s/60s many of us found the cars (Vintage and "modern") ran very well on it, so we/I cannot understand the modern paranoia about ethanol in fuel.
Ethyl alcohol does have a lower calorific value than most of the hydrocarbons it replaces, which is why I'm not entirely happy to have it.

ETA
I presume your oil company chemist friend is John Rowland, who when we were first faced with unleaded fuel, wrote an excellent series of articles on the use of lead in fuels: sound work, which helped debunk some widely held misapprehensions.

Edited by Allan L on Tuesday 30th August 15:33

[Slidingpillar]

Allan L said:

I presume your oil company chemist friend is John Rowland, who when we were first faced with unleaded fuel, wrote an excellent series of articles on the use of lead in fuels: sound work, which helped debunk some widely held misapprehensions.

Yup, you've guessed correctly, it is John Rowland.

I did mean to say that Cleveland Discol was sold in the UK till 1968. So you'd think any car made up till then would have been compatible with any UK pump fuel.

There's a lot of 'my mate says' with regard to ethanol in petrol, and very few remotely true stories that are investigateable. My lawnmower perhaps shows there is little need to worry. Sits in a dampish shed unused for perhaps 5 months. No fuel precautions at all and starts first pull in the spring. I could block the breather hole in the fuel tank, but since it doesn't seem to need it, I've not bothered.

[TooMany2cvs]

Slidingpillar said:

I did mean to say that Cleveland Discol was sold in the UK till 1968. So you'd think any car made up till then would have been compatible with any UK pump fuel.

Always assuming no rubber components etc have been replaced since then. Half-century old fuel pipes may have bigger issues than 5% ethanol.

Slidingpillar said:

There's a lot of 'my mate says' with regard to ethanol in petrol, and very few remotely true stories that are investigateable. My lawnmower perhaps shows there is little need to worry. Sits in a dampish shed unused for perhaps 5 months. No fuel precautions at all and starts first pull in the spring. I could block the breather hole in the fuel tank, but since it doesn't seem to need it, I've not bothered.

I've got a mower, chainsaw, hedge trimmer that all start just fine every spring - and a strimmer that's needed a new fuel pump diaphragm every single bloody spring since it was brand spankin' new. This year, it got a complete carb. Let's see what happens next spring.

[Bobo W]

A spot of thread resurrection.

Just perusing the supercar forum and came across a thread on higher octane fuel including the following comment

"(Shell V Power) is to be re-formulated to E5 (5% ethanol) spec. Bad news if the fuel is in contact with anything that can corrode ....... especially in a car that stands a lot in the winter maybe"

Now I always use higher octane fuel with a preference for V-Power for my BMW (1987) and generally lay it up over the winter. I don't this will be a trend for other high octane fuels but something to bear in mind.

[Peter3442]

There was talk of introducing much higher levels of alcohol in petrol in the late 1970s. I recall that a number of oil companies successfully ran test vehicles on 50% ethanol.

Today, I'd favour replacement of any vulnerable parts rather than doctoring fuel (even with an unhealthy vodka business on the side). The fact is that, if we are allowed to buy motor gasoline in the coming years, the fraction of ethanol is going to rise even higher.

[DonkeyApple]

Peter3442 said:

There was talk of introducing much higher levels of alcohol in petrol in the late 1970s. I recall that a number of oil companies successfully ran test vehicles on 50% ethanol.

Today, I'd favour replacement of any vulnerable parts rather than doctoring fuel (even with an unhealthy vodka business on the side). The fact is that, if we are allowed to buy motor gasoline in the coming years, the fraction of ethanol is going to rise even higher.

My guess is that the final realisation that the world’s forests and lungs are being destroyed so as to make ethanol and the fact that farming land is being diverted to make biofuels while hundreds of millions starve is going to make ethanol in petrol a short lived and hideously flawed bit of human history.

It’s addition to petrol at the levels of 5-10% make it totally pointless as a genuine improvement to environmental CO2 pollution at its point of usage. It just has value as a PR marketing tool at Governmental and corporate levels. Meanwhile on the back end, it’s production it is absolutely hideous with terrible, detrimental long term impacts to the global environment. It is responsible for the destruction of the very mechanism that naturally scrubs CO2 out of the atmosphere.

Biofuels are very bad because of the way they are produced and the harm that they do to the poorest humans. The long term ramifications of their use are just hideous. If we are lucky then Macron finally speaking out against Brazil will transpire to be the absolutely critical turning point in ending this corporate and Western governmental lunacy.

[Peter3442]

DonkeyApple, I agree with you. In fact, I've believed in growing trees and taking a more intelligent approach to agriculture since I read an article explaining that the bio-turnover of CO2 is mega compared with what the world produces (from industry and transport). However, on the basis that most politicians are either incompetent or corrupt and make good decisions only by accident, my feeling is that ethanol isn't going to go away and is likely to increase over the next decade.

[DonkeyApple]

Peter3442 said:

DonkeyApple, I agree with you. In fact, I've believed in growing trees and taking a more intelligent approach to agriculture since I read an article explaining that the bio-turnover of CO2 is mega compared with what the world produces (from industry and transport). However, on the basis that most politicians are either incompetent or corrupt and make good decisions only by accident, my feeling is that ethanol isn't going to go away and is likely to increase over the next decade.

I think we are just in the period of quick fixes that invariably kick the van down the road rather than actually dealing with the problem. Not creating biofuels but instead creating forestry is the intelligent long term solution but adding biofuel to petrol is the quick fix that keeps things ticking over without great economic change and ticks the PR boxes.

On a slightly different note we have a quite well known vegan nutter in the next village. He is heavily involved in the whole vegan expansion except that he isn’t a nutter but a very educated chap on the subject and one of his interesting beliefs is that in order to have veganism you must have meat eaters. His argument is that without cattle then crop rotation will fail within just a few cycles and everyone will starve as the land will stop producing crops.

Creating biofuel out of genuine waste is a sensible thing. Legislating that petrol must contain biofuel so that the big fuel companies must create constant and secure supply of biofuels which can only be done by actually clearing land and farming it is frankly totally insane if not criminal. And maybe the raising of this issue through the destruction in Brazil can bring this lunacy to the public eye.

Another random anecdote on a similar vein is that we have, just a few miles from us, a fantastic biomass power generation plant. It hoovers up grants and must produce X amount of power a month. In order to ensure it can achieve this it has had to import wood. This isn’t waste but specifically harvested, imported and burnt. And that is after they have hoovered up as many trees from the local land owners that they could, an act which has completely killed the local network of local workers just going and removing the few trees that needed clearing for free, chopping and seasoning the wood before selling it as fire wood. It’s just another bit of silliness that has upset a thousand year old eco system, led to the destruction of trees both here and in Europe and has all been subsidised by the taxpayer.

We could do with a decade of common sense.

[MarkwG]

Bobo W said:

...Just perusing the supercar forum and came across a thread on higher octane fuel including the following comment

"(Shell V Power) is to be re-formulated to E5 (5% ethanol) spec....

I think it's already happened, the V Power pumps I use are already marked as E5.

[dinkel]

Yeah, but isn't that because Shell does not have decent stickers?

Over here in NL petrolcomp Firezone had to stop with their excellent 102 fuel due to legislation:

https://competition102.com/

In the end - within 3 to 5 years - fossil fuel will be banned... We're doomed!