Isopropyl Alcohol as a Fuel

[Perko7Participant @perko7]

My dad used to muck around with outboard motors a bit and would always say that if a motor would not start he would whip out the plug and look at it. If there appeared to be something like water condensation on the plug he would dip it in metho and put it back in and nine times out of ten the engine would start on the next pull of the cord.

A mate of mine also used to put a 1litre bottle of metho in the fuel tank of his car every time he filled up, as the metho would absorb any water in the tank and it would pass through the engine as the fuel was used up.

In Australia there is strong support push for use of fuel containing a percentage of ethanol as an alternative to straight unleaded fuel, as the added ethanol (usually 10%) raises the Octane rating of the fuel, so providing better combustion and prevention of pre-ignition.

[SamsarandaParticipant @samsaranda]

The more I read about the problems with Ethanol I begin to wonder if the headlong rush to put more of it into our road fuel ( the EU want us to up the amount from 5 percent to 10 percent ) , I fear we will be suffering more and more problems, it already dissolves certain polymers used in older vehicles.

Dave

Edited By JasonB on 21/07/2017 18:20:02

[Brian OldfordParticipant @brianoldford70365]

Posted by 12 Bore on 21/07/2017 14:09:11:

. . . . . . . .. Notwithstanding the political problems the sooner our "Divorce" from the EU becomes absolute we will be better off!!!

Dave

I'm not sure this is the correct forum to express your point of view on that subject. Many might jump to disagree with you. Whether or not I agree with you I respect youe opinion but must ask you to keep it to other more appropriate fora.

Edited By Brian Oldford on 21/07/2017 17:51:26

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

Indeed, no politics please.

[SamsarandaParticipant @samsaranda]

My apologies to Brian Oldford and to Neil Wyatt I shouldn't have made a political comment on this website, I will ensure that in future I only discuss model engineering and relevant issues, No Politics !!! Apologies to anyone else who I may have offended I should keep my views on other issues to myself.

A suitably humbled Dave.

[Robin GrahamParticipant @robingraham42208]

Another thank-you to Adrian for the pointer to Aspen, which I'd not heard of but sounds ideal for my chainsaw which gets only intermittent and unpredictable use.

I'm not sure if it's relevant to the OP, but as meths has been discussed, it may be useful to know that Industrial Denatured Alcohol (as HMRC call it) is readily available at reasonable prices (eg £22 / 5 litres from Astor and Windsor) should it be wanted. This is 99% ethanol 1% methanol v/v. It does require a licence from HMRC, but that is not difficult to obtain. When I applied I was interested in fomulating home-brew wood dyes and finishes, and they accepted that as sufficient reason for a 10 litre/year licence without question. Of course pure ethanol is hygroscopic and will eventually dilute itself to around 96% if left exposed to air.

This discussion also reminded of a common chemistry lab solvent known as petroleum ether, which is available in various bp ranges, the most volatile being 40-60. I believe this to be a refined mix of alkanes, but I have no idea as to the proportion of straight-chain to branched isomers, which would presumably influence it's usefulness as an IC fuel. Might be worth an experiment for those in the IC world tho?

Rob.

[Levent Suberk 1Participant @leventsuberk1]

I tried to run a Cox model engine with IPA but not successful. Two stroke model engines require methanil based fuel.

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