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Removing Ethanol From E10 Fuel

That's nice to know. It appears that you need a subscription to read the article. If I had a subscription, I'd already know about the article.
 
It's a fairly lame article IMHO.

It's a lab procedure and you'd be sick of it after making maybe enough to fill a motorcycle gas tank.

The funny part was that after you remove the ethanol you'll need to add back an octane booster. The articles says "you'll turn premium into regular."
 
For Oilheads and newer, I'm not sure what problem removing ethanol is trying to solve. It's a valid Octane booster and oxygenator.

Funny thing is if you search the web some high performance engine builders seem to be trying pure ethanol. Not that our bikes would run on it.
 
For Oilheads and newer, I'm not sure what problem removing ethanol is trying to solve. It's a valid Octane booster and oxygenator.

Funny thing is if you search the web some high performance engine builders seem to be trying pure ethanol. Not that our bikes would run on it.

Pure alcohol fuels predate WWII. Race cars have been using it for years.
 
Pure alcohol fuels predate WWII. Race cars have been using it for years.

But isn't that methanol, not ethanol?

Back in my early college days I did run my Toyota Corolla on pure ethanol, though. (Well, 95% ethanol, not neat ethanol.) It seemed to run fine.
 
Played around with this, just for fun, in the shop.

Take 100 mls of E10 gas (should be 90 mls gas, 10 mls ethanol):
1-100mlgas.jpg

.
.
.
Add 50 mls water:
2-50mlwater.jpg

.
.
.
Mix well:
3-mix.jpg

.
.
.
Pour back into graduated cylinder, and you have 90 mls gasoline, 60 mls water/ethanol. It works:
4-90mlgas.jpg
 
Pure alcohol fuels predate WWII. Race cars have been using it for years.

Interesting. The sites I was reading were touting its detonation resisting qualities.

Robos' pictures showing the phase separation of water to measure alcohol content are interesting--and at the same time a warning. Get some water in the tank and the same thing happens--and your effective Octane plummets.

Isn't Heet very hard on rubber hoses?
 
Played around with this, just for fun, in the shop.

Take 100 mls of E10 gas (should be 90 mls gas, 10 mls ethanol):
1-100mlgas.jpg

.
.
.
Add 50 mls water:
2-50mlwater.jpg

.
.
.
Mix well:
3-mix.jpg

.
.
.
Pour back into graduated cylinder, and you have 90 mls gasoline, 60 mls water/ethanol. It works:
4-90mlgas.jpg

Proof Positive = Excellent

:buds
 
Get some water in the tank and the same thing happens--and your effective Octane plummets.

I wonder how much moisture is getting into the tank from the ambient air needed to absorb the vacuum build-up. Especially when the motorcycle is parked for a longer period with an "open" tank vent ("drilled hole" in the filler cap, removal of tank vent solenoid).

/Guenther
 
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Well, it's gonna be back to the shop time. I wonder what would happen if I added 1 ml of water to 100 mls of gasoline? Would all the 10mls of alcohol mix with the water and form a 90% ethanol solution? Cause 90% ethanol will burn.
 
Brilliant! Add a bunch of water to gasoline to remove the octane enhancer....
I just have to chuckle over the fear some folks have of alcohols in fuel.
I heard of you wrap your helmet in tin-foil........
 
The next experiment here is obvious, especially after you figure out the minimum water to remove the ethanol.

Can the removed ethanol be made safe to drink, in effect providing drinkable alcohol at an effective tax rate nearly that of moonshine (nothing, and yes some folks still make it illegally in my state where if you know the right people it can be had in 1/2 and gal containers)?

Were I doing this experiment I would take some of the removed alcohol and use it to run a burner to distill the rest, take an appropriate temperature cut of the distillate and head off to the lab to fire up the gas chromatograph for an answer re purity. I don't want to be drinking any of the aromatic hydrocarbons in gasoline and there is probably a suitable procedure readily divined that can turn cheap gasoline into high proof booze while burning all of the rest of it either in a vehicle or to run the still...that ought to assuage the hard core eco freaks at least a lttle..

I know one thing- if it gets published and enough folks do t, the feds will drop E15 thinking in a hurry. Ethanol's obvious substitute, methanol, isn't made from corn so doesn't have any huge lobby for it..
 
Brilliant! Add a bunch of water to gasoline to remove the octane enhancer....
I just have to chuckle over the fear some folks have of alcohols in fuel.
I heard of you wrap your helmet in tin-foil........
I had a friend, Sherman that lived out on Betty Gap Ridge-he used to wrap foil around his TV lead in wire , behind the set & slid it up & down to "improve the picture"-make your own conclusions.
 
The best way to remove ethanol is to brow beat the government regulators to stop allowing it in gasoline. Especially this 15% ethanol.
 
Brilliant! Add a bunch of water to gasoline to remove the octane enhancer....
I just have to chuckle over the fear some folks have of alcohols in fuel.
I heard of you wrap your helmet in tin-foil........

I won't be doing this since my cars/bikes are fine. But, certainly, there are some plastic tanks on bikes out there that do have EtOH issues.
 
My two cents worth....

I've used ethanol (nominally 10% ethanol) in my cars, motorcycles and small engines (i.e. lawn mower and snowblower) for at least ten years and it has never caused me any problems whatsoever.

Phase separation has never happened to me, and I live in Ontario where it can get down to -35F in the winter. In fact, ethanol actually has improved my engine starting reliability by removing any small traces of residual moisture from the gas tank, keeping my gas tank bone dry in the process. I used to add gas-line antifreeze in the winter time but have never had to since I have been using ethanol; I think my system is as dry as a bone due to the ethanol.

Realistically, unless you are dealing with a flawed gas station that has a large amount of water in their underground storage tanks, you probably aren't adding any water to your gas tank when you fill up, so the fear of large amounts of water causing phase separation is probably a red herring. I bet if I drained the fuel out of my motorcycle and cars there wouldn't be a trace of water.

It also amazed me that MCN is recommending that people start removing ethanol from their gasoline. Gasoline is extremely flammable, and there is not a word of caution in their article about the fire and safey hazard of playing around with open containers of gasoline and ethanol. :bikes
 
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