Forum

[Dennis C]

Hey Gwilly, leave me out of the scietifoc bit, hell I cant even spell scientifac.

[jefrs]

For myself the preference for premium fuel for many, many years now in various engines, is not the higher RON but the cleaner burning. Around here that is V-Power or BP Ultimate, there being no ESSO. There is a marked difference if I have to fill up with supermarket rubbish. The "99RON" of V-Power /for example/ is a minimum rating as the RON of all petrols drops once it sits in the tanks, freshly delivered V-Power can be over 100RON.



Alcohol has been added to petrol since forever, it is no new thing. National Benzole made a big thing of 50/50 petrol/benzole (benzene/toluene) which was phased out in favour of lead octane because benzene is so hazardous, only for lead octane to be replaced by benzene in lead-free petrol as the anti-knock agent. Go figure.. Don't worry about the ethanol in your nice green unleaded fuel, there are far more corrosive solvents, heavy metals and class 1 carcinogen benzene mixed up in there.

Before motors ran on petrol, they ran on benzole, the name is a bit of a give-away.



Indian fuel can be as low as 87RON, the bikes still run but I wonder what other muck is in there.

[PeteF]

Benzole (or benzol) is a coal-tar product consisting mainly of benzene and toluene. It was originally used as a 'motor spirit', as was petroleum spirits. Benzole was also blended with petrol and sold as a motor fuel under trade names including "National Benzole Mixture" and "Regent Benzole Mixture".
Not to be confused with Benzine (petroleum ether) the very lightest, most volatile liquid hydrocarbon solvents.

[jefrs]

Benzene (not to be confused with "benzine" better known as petroleum ether), as added to unleaded fuel just happens to be a class 1 carcinogen. Chemicals have what's called "IUPAC" names, a lot of them sound alike, so the spelling is important.



I am reminded of college chemistry when we suddenly decided to go to evening tea early because one of the students was crystallising out of pet.ether over a Bunsen, we scampered out whilst the lecturer had a fit.

[Rattlebattle]

The point I was making about ethanol had nothing to do with its toxicity or potential harm to humans. The fact is that it can be harmful to older fuel systems not designed to cope with the corrosion it produces. That is why Amal now produces "stay up" floats - ethanol attacks the plastic ones. It also rots out tanks as it is hygroscopic, causes fuel leaks at fuel taps and through certain types of fuel hose and us, frankly, an all round PITA for those who run vehicles that are not designed to accommodate it. I well remember Cleveland Discol too. That had none of these problems. The fact is that it is simply a knee jerk reaction by the Government to meet so-called green targets. The point about benzene is well made. Vehicles without catalytic converters running on early unleaded fuel produced very toxic exhaust gasses, worse really than when they ran on leaded fuel. Having friends with rotted out fuel tanks etc I DO worry about what wil happen if we are forced to used 10% ethanol fuel. Nobody has ever explained how if an ECU fuelling program is designed to adjust the fuel/air ratio to the optimum for petrol (about 14:1) it compensates for ethanol for which the optimum is about half of that for petrol? Surely what fuel mix there is must have some impact?

[PeteF]

Rattlebattle, in the event of non ethanol fuel becoming unobtainable, it is fairly easy to remove the ethanol from petrol.
Basically you just add water which separates the ethanol out and the petrol can be decanted off the top.
OK, messy and expensive but do-able. There are kits to do this or you can easily make your own.

[nigelphoto]

The original impetus for introducing bio-ethanol to petrol came from vegetable munching, cardigan wearing, Guardian readers (sorry - I mean 'Green Lobby") who thought it would replace some of those nasty hydrocarbons. They didn't take into account that the principal ingredient of bio-ethnaol is maize which reduces vast tracts of East Anglia to barren wasteland ('desertification' in pseudo speke). However, although Government regulations are not nearly as prescriptive as people think, it is NOT mandatory to put bio-ethanol in >95RON grades and the Government has no plans to force through the use of higher proportions of bio-ethanol, the petrol companies have discovered that its cheaper to produce and therefore they are now pushing for higher % to make more profit. Its interesting to note that petrol transport hydrocarbon emissions amounts to 10.5% of total emissions, whereas Agriculture, i.e. pharting cattle, produces 14.8% (although that depends on which particularly learned paper you look at).

[Rattlebattle]

Quite so, Nigelphoto; my sentiments exactly. I know you can remove ethanol in the way suggested. Scalyback did a video of it. Shouldn't have to though....