Sunday, December 14, 2008

Fuel Ethanol: Beyound Ethanol

1. Fuel ethanol is not sold with zero water content. Fuel ethanol with less than 0.5 % water is considered “anhydrous ethanol” while ethanol with higher water contents is usually referred to as “hydrated ethanol”.

2. Denatured alcohol typically contains up to 1% water and other constituents (e.g. methanol). Denaturing is to add denaturants to alcohol in order to make it unfit for beverage or internal human medical use.

3. A parameter that is used in evaluation of fuel ethanol is the pHe as defined by ASTM D6423. Like pH used to measure the acidity of aqueous solutions, the pHe value is a measure of the acid strength of high ethanol content fuels (>70% v/v). The pH 7 is considered neutral for aqueous solutions, whereas a pHe value of 9.55 is the neutralization point for ethanol.
4. Ethanolic solutions have lower conductivity than water.
5.The oxygen solubility in ethanol is higher than that of water.

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