Acetone mixed with fuel in a diesel engine? 1

[Nico3d3]

Anyone know if we can achieve better fuel economy by adding acetone to the fuel in a diesel engine? I heard about it on a Volkswagen TDI forum and I'm curious.

 

[patprimmer]

Yes

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[dcasto]

come on pat, finish the post!!!!!

 

[patprimmer]

I answered the only question asked. I do know i we can achieve better fuel economy by adding acetone to diesel fuel.

To answer the question not asked, you can't.

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[Nico3d3]

Could you explain why it's improving the fuel economy? What's the best proportion to use in a fuel tank?

 

[CorBlimeyLimey]

Lots of info out there ... (both for and against)

http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&q=acetone+gasoline+mileage&btnG=Google+Search&meta=

 

[patprimmer]

Sorry a typo

That was we CAN'T get better fuel economy.

Acetone does several things.

It burns very well and might contribute to the power output, but only in proportion to the energy added by the extra fuel. Acetone is a fuel so it's burning and contributing is not an economy gain.

Acetone is a very good solvent, and it help different fuels mix, but this does not help a diesel unless you have a wax problem or unless you are trying to mix bio diesel an having problems.

Aetone can be used as a fuel in spark ignition engine an as I remember has high octane and high energy content. I think at least one land speed record wa set using acetne as a fuel way back when.

High octane hurts rather than helping diesel engnes as they depend on auto ignition from compression to run.

Hre is some good info on fuels in genral whichmight improve your understanding.

http://blizzard.rwic.und.edu/~nordlie/cars/gasoline.html

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[drwebb]

Six threads spanning three years on this forum alone.

 

[dcasto]

It is so much fun watching people throw money away on this type of junk. BUT, when we create a crisis people jump out of widows rather than to stop and think about it. Between the latest gimmick of Aluminum wire as a fuel in a Cornish engine, to acetone, to HHO, to magnets and geet, it'll never end.

 

[ivymike]

I've tried all the others, where can I find some geet?

 

[catserveng]

Several years ago we had a customer who ran a fleet of HAZMAT waste disposal trucks in SoCal. He tried running recovered acetone as an addmix to his fuel. The treatment and cleanliness didn't appear to be an issue. His fleet was a 50/50 mix of CAT and Cummins, while running the mixed fuel at a blend of 95/5 diesel/acetone he had about a 90% engine failure rate in a four month period.

Most failures were in the fuel injection pumps, scuffing of the plunger to barrels mostly. Also experienced several problems associated with the acetone boiling off at normal engine out fuel temps, causing bubbles and in some cases leaks and other problems, mostly hard starting and stalling. Plus as mentioned above, a great solvent, lots of primary and secondary filter plugging initially as the acetone broke loose all the crud deposited in the tank and fuel system. Even on "well maintained" trucks (actually they were very well maintained and the customer's fleet manager was a technically smart guy).

Sounded like a good idea, seemed technically feasible, in the end it caused him a lot of problems.

We also in the course of this did some cursory emissions measurements with a Testo 350 and opacity meter, CO was down, visible smoke reduced, NOx up about 8-12%.

Would think with newer high pressure fuel systems this might even be a bigger problem.

Hope that helps

 

[Nico3d3]

Oh my, he used a more agressive mixture than the one I tried in one tank on my Volks TDI. I added 2 ounce in a 55 liters tank (55 liters=14.5 gal). This amount of acetone represent around 0.1% of the total amount of fuel.

 

[patprimmer]

And it probably reduced the diesel fuel usage by round 0.1%

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