Removal of ethanol from gasoline 8

[FredRosse]

I have seen where mixing water with E10 pump gasoline will then allow the water/ethanol mixture to separate from the gasoline. This is stated to be necessary for preservation of older (collector) vehicle fuel systems that suffer many ills from the new gasoline E10 or E15 fuels. I understand this will reduce octane rating somewhat. A few relevant questions for the fuels experts:

1. Is the water mix/separation method effective?

2. What are the disadvantages here, with respect to use in older IC engines? Understanding that labor and costs to end up with less fuel and less total heat value is an obvious result.

3. What steps may be taken to correct or adjust properties of the separated (ethanol removed) gasoline to be more compatible with old engine fuel systems?

4. Is heat distillation an option here (with proper safety precautions), and how would that be done? I remember in public high school years ago (1960s) the chemistry class ran several fractional distillations (6 teams of 5 students each) of pump gasoline in the chemistry classroom, Bunsen burners under glass containers, condensing the distillate with glass water cooled heat exchangers, all six distillations running simultaneously in a classroom with 30 students. I'll bet that is not done these days!

 

[Prototyper]

FWIW,

http://pure-gas.org

 

[PackardV8]

Anecdotally, I have four 1955-99 vehicles, as well as a snow blower, rototiller, two lawn mowers, two chainsaws, weedwhacker, pressure washer, all pre-1999 engines. None of them have ever had problems I could trace specifically to E10 fuel. One 1955 Studebaker pickup had the original fuel pump, fuel lines and carburetor. I'd drive it in the summer and fall, park it over the winter and drive it out again in the spring with never any trouble. At the end, it was seeing exhaust valve seat and face wear but that was lack of tetraethyl lead, not presence of ethanol.

Want to make a petroleum chemist consider changing professions? Just tell him how you always add Stabil/Sea Foam/Marvel Mystery Oil/STP/Wynn's/diesel fuel/whatever-snake-oil to your gas tank or crankcase every fillup.

One such 30-year-Chevron-veteran told me, "Those marketing shysters buy their base stocks from us and re-label it and sell it for several dollars per pint. If it was a good thing, we could add it ourselves for less than a penny. Why is it so many car owners think they're a better petroleum engineer than I am?

jack vines

 

[dirk489]

Have a look at this, just stumbled on it:

http://www.ethanil.co.uk

Dirk

 

[moltenmetal]

Stored fuel used to wreck my chainsaws. I started adding fuel stabilizer to my stored fuel and running the chainsaw completely empty prior to each storage. It solved my problems completely. Not all that practical with a vehicle though.

Fuel system components in vintage cars vary hugely from brand to brand, model to model and year to year. I can imagine some vintage cars having problems with E10, particularly on long storage between runs. But others will be totally fine.

I converted my vintage car to electric. It no longer has fuel system problems!