Water in gas... intentionally.

[Yager200i]

Another water-in-fuel patent, this time using different chemistry, allowing up to 15% water.

http://www.sumobrain.com/patents/us/Fuel/US2125448.pdf

This mixture works, but is cloudy:
Triethanolamine: 18cc
Oleic acid: 58 cc
Water: 75 cc
Gasoline: 750cc

This mixture works, and is clear... indistinguishable from neat gasoline:
Triethanolamine: 18cc
Oleic acid: 58 cc
Ethylene glycol monobutyl ether: 20cc
Secondary hexyl alcohol: 25cc
Water: 75 cc
Gasoline: 750cc

It seems to me that using emulsifying agents (soap) in gasoline would make your engine blow soap bubbles. I like the acetone solution better, although modern gasoline does come with detergents added to clean up the engine... that may make it easier to sneak more water into the fuel without compromising engine performance.

I wonder why the fuel companies aren't already doing this... or perhaps they are, since no one can tell if they are or not... that'd be a great way to increase profits, 10% or more of your "fuel" being cheap water.

I guess when I experiment, if I find that no (or only a very small percentage) of water can be made miscible with gasoline, we'll know for sure.

[Yager200i]

A mention of acetone and water in gasoline by Julian Edgars:

http://www.autospeed.com/cms/A_0115/article.html
"Note that it has been suggested in some circles that the water can be directly added to the petrol by using a solvent such as acetone. However, I have not heard of anyone actually doing this!"

And another article:
http://www.autospeed.com/cms/article.html?&A=110615

[BettinANDlosing]

Big question is, have YOU tried it yet!!!!!?? Grab the garden hose and fill er' up!!

[Yager200i]

No, not yet. I'm looking for half a dozen 1/2 gallon jars that can have their tops tightly sealed. Then I'll start testing.

I'm also looking at tungsten disulfide (WS2) as a fuel additive. Did you know it's not only one of the most lubricious materials known to man, and would help to lubricate the fuel pump and fuel injector spindle, but it's also used in catalytic cracking of gasoline? That stuff's got a million uses.

[Yager200i]

Well, I couldn't find any half-gallon glass containers that could be sealed, so I got six quart jars, often used in canning.

I also got four smaller 1/2 pint jars. I'll use them for measuring and weighing out the amount of each fuel additive.

I'll get started on my next days off.

[Yager200i]

I started experimenting with alternative fuels today.

The Sir Harry Ricardo Racing Discol 1 (RD1) fuel consisted of 80% ethanol, 10% acetone and 10% water. The reason it became popular with racers in 1921 was because it gave ~20% better power and fuel efficiency over straight gasoline of the day.

My plan is to convert the ethanol in E10 gasoline to RD1 to see if it causes an increase in fuel efficiency.

This means ~38 ml of water and ~38 ml of acetone needs to be added to each gallon of gasoline, a 1:100 ratio.

One gallon is 3785.41178 ml. 10% of that (the 10% ethanol in E10 gasoline) is 378.541 ml. 10% of that (the 10% of acetone and 10% of water) would be 37.854 ml each of water and acetone.

I put each solution into new, clean glass jars and sealed them tightly, marking the total level and in the case of Test #1, the level of the water that settled out.

****
TEST #1:
300 ml gasoline
3 ml acetone
3 ml water

The 6 ml acetone / water 50:50 mixture was perfectly mixed with no separation. But when added to the gasoline, it almost immediately turned slightly cloudy, and some water / ethanol mixture (~50% of the amount of acetone / water added) settled out in the bottom of the jar.

BUT, the acetone / water mixture that remained in solution with the gasoline can be considered "saturated" with water. So just add more gasoline, then add the appropriate proportion of acetone in accordance with the amount of extra gasoline added, and that extra water / ethanol should become miscible in the gasoline. So I'll have to do some calculations to get the ratios just right for E10 gasoline.

I've ordered some graduated pipettes and I'll do more exact measurements to get the ratios exact.

TEST #2:
100 ml acetone
100 ml water

This mixed together perfectly, with no separation or cloudiness, which is to be expected, since acetone is 100% miscible in water.

TEST #3:
400 ml gasoline
4 ml acetone

This mixed together perfectly, with no separation or cloudiness, which is to be expected, since acetone is 100% miscible in gasoline.

I'll let the three jars sit for a week or so, to see if anything settles out.

[zombie]

I can't believe that you (Yager) fell into a black hole.
Of all people I thought maybe Wordslinger or Axy or would post up such nonsense.

First problem is, ethanol is an azeotropic compound. It always contains at least 4% water. This includes the EtOH in gasoline.
Second problem is EtOH has a lower energy rating than gasoline. It lowers the octane rating. It adds nothing to gasoline except oxygen as it burns. That The sole purpose of it as an additive is to create more oxygen in the catalytic converter. The SMALL amount of water produced in this process comes from the 4% water in the initial 10% EyOH, and the conversion of hydrocarbons (carbon monoxide) to H2O in the cat converter. So from a gallon of gasoline you might get 2 ounces of water from the condensed steam in the fuel, and the conversion process in the cat.

Third problem is the acetone. Combining a keytone (acetone), and an alcohol creates a  hemiacetal. This is a water soluble compound that does nothing to homogenize anything in the fuel. It simply is diluted in water.

I HATE to burst your bubble but you can do MUCH better running advanced ignition timing, and a water injection system to control ping. The GM engineers did this in the early 60's but stopped offering it because people forgot to top off the water bottles, and burnt up pistons.

There are no magic fuels or combinations that can be made at home to outperform gasoline. All the improvements to be had are in the engine, and additives can be used to temper these razor edge improvements but they do nothing on their own.

[0BARK4322]

15% water in a fuel run engine....if you believe that then try it in your system and see what happens....Oh yea, be ready for your engine to stall

[zombie]

Yagers a good mechanic. this crap will keep him busy for awhile.

If you really want to have fun, and throw dollars out the tailpipe... Retune your injector to meter Nitro Methane. Now that works (25 bucks a gallon, and maybe 20-30 mpg) perhaps 10-15 mph faster tho

[Yager200i]

Again, it's not strictly about how much energy we can cram into the cylinder, unless we don't take into account other variables. Air has traditionally been the unalterable variable in that it's the only expansion medium used.

But given the same temperature delta in-cylinder, air will expand ~37.75:1, whereas water expands ~1600:1. So if we can get more expansion for the same temperature delta, logically we can get the same expansion for less temperature delta... ie: less fuel.

The acetone is merely there to act as a miscibility "bridge" between the hydrocarbon and aqueous. I'll also be experimenting with alkyl betaine as an emulsifier.

Water plays a critical role in oxidative combustion:
http://not2fast.com/thermo/water_injection/water_chemistry.txt
By putting water (or hydroxide (OH^-), given that hydroxide represents the last step water takes prior to initiation of combustion), we can actually accelerate combustion. The hydroxide is effective at stripping hydrogen from hydrocarbon fuels, the faster we can strip those hydrogens out and burn them, the more time we give CO to burn to CO₂, given that the two burning process are competing for available oxygen molecules, and CO -> CO₂ is a slower process. And that combustion step not only gives a cleaner exhaust, it's exothermic. We want that to burn in-cylinder if at all possible.

[Yager200i]

I can't believe that you (Yager) fell into a black hole.
Of all people I thought maybe Wordslinger or Axy or would post up such nonsense.

First problem is, ethanol is an azeotropic compound.

How is that a bad thing?

Water boils at 100C. Ethanol boils at 78.4C. But the azeotropic mixture of 95.63% ethanol and 4.37% water boils at 78.2C. We make it easier to get expansion in-cylinder.

It always contains at least 4% water. This includes the EtOH in gasoline.

Wrong. The azeotropic mixture of 95.63% ethanol and 4.37% water always contains water, but ethanol doesn't necessarily contain much water from the fuel pump... if it did, when temperatures dropped a bit, you'd get phase separation and your engine would run rough (or not at all) as that water/ethanol mixture settled to the bottom of your tank and got sucked up by the fuel pump.

Second problem is EtOH has a lower energy rating than gasoline. It lowers the octane rating.

Huh? Ethanol has an octane rating of 113. It raises the octane rating of gasoline. It does, however, lower the energy content.

E10 gasoline has ~104481 BTU gasoline + 7600 BTU ethanol = 112081 BTU/gallon.
Straight gasoline has ~116,090 Btu/gal.

This represents a loss of ~3.45% energy content.

It adds nothing to gasoline except oxygen as it burns. That The sole purpose of it as an additive is to create more oxygen in the catalytic converter.

My bike doesn't have a catalytic converter, so I intend to get it to contribute in-cylinder.

The SMALL amount of water produced in this process comes from the 4% water in the initial 10% EyOH, and the conversion of hydrocarbons (carbon monoxide) to H2O in the cat converter. So from a gallon of gasoline you might get 2 ounces of water from the condensed steam in the fuel, and the conversion process in the cat.

The water's there (and eventually, the hydroxide will be there) for the express purpose of facilitating in-cylinder combustion and expansion. The water will be preheated to just below its latent heat of vaporization, so it doesn't have to absorb much heat in-cylinder to flash to steam.

Third problem is the acetone. Combining a keytone (acetone), and an alcohol creates a  hemiacetal. This is a water soluble compound that does nothing to homogenize anything in the fuel. It simply is diluted in water.

Hemiacetals are notoriously unstable compounds. They stand in for the hydroxide radicals that will be used at a later date. Having hemiacetals in-cylinder isn't a bad thing.

I HATE to burst your bubble but you can do MUCH better running advanced ignition timing, and a water injection system to control ping. The GM engineers did this in the early 60's but stopped offering it because people forgot to top off the water bottles, and burnt up pistons.

There are no magic fuels or combinations that can be made at home to outperform gasoline. All the improvements to be had are in the engine, and additives can be used to temper these razor edge improvements but they do nothing on their own.

There's a reason Racing Discol 1 became popular amongst racers (purportedly it gave power and fuel efficiency gains over straight gasoline). I intend to re-discover exactly what that reason was, and if it's still applicable to modern-day fuel.

[Yager200i]

15% water in a fuel run engine....if you believe that then try it in your system and see what happens....Oh yea, be ready for your engine to stall

Take a look at how many cc/minute some of the racers are injecting via their water injection systems. Some of them are pumping more water through their engines than fuel.

[zombie]

How is that a bad thing?

Water boils at 100C. Ethanol boils at 78.4C. But the azeotropic mixture of 95.63% ethanol and 4.37% water boils at 78.2C. We make it easier to get expansion in-cylinder.


It is actually a good thing BUT the energy rating is far less than gasoline so to create the same power you need more fuel. MPG, HP, and Torque all go down.

Wrong. The azeotropic mixture of 95.63% ethanol and 4.37% water always contains water, but ethanol doesn't necessarily contain much water from the fuel pump... if it did, when temperatures dropped a bit, you'd get phase separation and your engine would run rough (or not at all) as that water/ethanol mixture settled to the bottom of your tank and got sucked up by the fuel pump.

Well that is actually the main issue w/ ethanol blended fuels. Phase separation. There are additives besides the Ethanol to counter act this but set a cup of EtOH fuel in your freezer, and you will see it happen.

"Phase Separation describes what happens to gasoline containing Ethanol when water is present. When gasoline containing even small amounts of Ethanol comes in contact with water, either liquid or in the form of humidity; the Ethanol will pick-up and absorb some or all of that water. When it reaches a saturation point the Ethanol and water will Phase Separate, actually coming out of solution and forming two or three distinct layers in the tank.

Phase Separation is also temperature dependent. For example, E-10 can hold approximately .05% water at 60°F. To better understand the amount of water that we are talking about, picture 1 gallon of E-10 at 60°F. This gallon will hold approximately 3.8 teaspoons of water. However if the temperature drops to 20°F it can only hold about 2.8 teaspoons of water."
http://www.lcbamarketing.com/phase_separation_in_ethanol_blen.htm

Huh? Ethanol has an octane rating of 113. It raises the octane rating of gasoline. It does, however, lower the energy content.

E10 gasoline has ~104481 BTU gasoline + 7600 BTU ethanol = 112081 BTU/gallon.
Straight gasoline has ~116,090 Btu/gal.

This represents a loss of ~3.45% energy content.

.

Exactly. Water plus EtOH reduce the power output of every engine designed to run on gasoline.

The water's there (and eventually, the hydroxide will be there) for the express purpose of facilitating in-cylinder combustion and expansion. The water will be preheated to just below its latent heat of vaporization, so it doesn't have to absorb much heat in-cylinder to flash to steam.

Hemiacetals are notoriously unstable compounds. They stand in for the hydroxide radicals that will be used at a later date. Having hemiacetals in-cylinder isn't a bad thing.

There's a reason Racing Discol 1 became popular amongst racers (purportedly it gave power and fuel efficiency gains over straight gasoline). I intend to re-discover exactly what that reason was, and if it's still applicable to modern-day fuel.

I don't get where you think these hydroxides will come from or the preheating of the water before injection.
Like I said earlier it is FAR easier to advance the Ign. timing, and inject (separately) pure water. Get the amount of advance, and water correct, and you will see an increase in both power, and MPG. This has nothing to do with Unicorn pee theory. It is simply as you expressed... The expansion of gasses in the cylinder. The advanced ignition allows for more power to be extracted from the gasoline, and the steam expansion of the water adds the "bonus" power.
Only problem is that in the long term use of water injectors the oil suffers, as do the cylinder walls, and piston rings. The cylinder is essentially steam cleaned on every cycle, and more frequent oil changes are needed as to correct steam passing the rings.

There is a current thread on peroxides as fuel here... http://www.sciencemadness.org/talk/viewthread.php?tid=62803

It did not get too in depth because the topic has been beaten to death as has Ethanol in gasoline.

It's a fun idea to play with, and some small gains may be realized but the side issues far outweigh the tiny advantage. I did far better with methanol, and benzine blends, and almost stock jetting 30 years ago.

EtOH is one of two future fuels (bio-diesel, and EtOH) if we INSIST on keeping IC engines as the norm. As an additive it sucks, Literately sucks power, absorbs water, and creates mechanical problems in vehicles not designed to use it.
It (EtOH) is cheap, and readily available. Benzine, and methanol are not. Pure gasoline is the best, and least expensive option.


I wanted to add this thought...
It may be a better experiment to see if you can properly gauge your injection system to run on diesel fuel(s).
Perhaps some combo of diethelether, and diesel...

[Yager200i]

How is that a bad thing?

Water boils at 100C. Ethanol boils at 78.4C. But the azeotropic mixture of 95.63% ethanol and 4.37% water boils at 78.2C. We make it easier to get expansion in-cylinder.

It is actually a good thing BUT the energy rating is far less than gasoline so to create the same power you need more fuel. MPG, HP, and Torque all go down.

E10-RD1 (E10 gasoline with the 10% ethanol tranformed into RD1) has:
102,391.38 BTU Gasoline + 7448 BTU ethanol + 858.753239 BTU acetone + 0 BTU water
~110,698.133 BTU / gallon

From my example above,
E10 gasoline has ~104481 BTU gasoline + 7600 BTU ethanol = 112081 BTU/gallon.
Straight gasoline has ~116,090 Btu/gal.

So going to E10-RD1 represents a 1.234% lower energy content than E10 gasoline.

Wrong. The azeotropic mixture of 95.63% ethanol and 4.37% water always contains water, but ethanol doesn't necessarily contain much water from the fuel pump... if it did, when temperatures dropped a bit, you'd get phase separation and your engine would run rough (or not at all) as that water/ethanol mixture settled to the bottom of your tank and got sucked up by the fuel pump.

Well that is actually the main issue w/ ethanol blended fuels. Phase separation. There are additives besides the Ethanol to counter act this but set a cup of EtOH fuel in your freezer, and you will see it happen.

"Phase Separation describes what happens to gasoline containing Ethanol when water is present. When gasoline containing even small amounts of Ethanol comes in contact with water, either liquid or in the form of humidity; the Ethanol will pick-up and absorb some or all of that water. When it reaches a saturation point the Ethanol and water will Phase Separate, actually coming out of solution and forming two or three distinct layers in the tank.

Phase Separation is also temperature dependent. For example, E-10 can hold approximately .05% water at 60°F. To better understand the amount of water that we are talking about, picture 1 gallon of E-10 at 60°F. This gallon will hold approximately 3.8 teaspoons of water. However if the temperature drops to 20°F it can only hold about 2.8 teaspoons of water."
http://www.lcbamarketing.com/phase_separation_in_ethanol_blen.htm

Yeah. But the acetone acts as a buffer to hold much more water in solution with the hydrocarbon. I'll be doing experiments to determine the stability of that solution at various temperatures soon.

Huh? Ethanol has an octane rating of 113. It raises the octane rating of gasoline. It does, however, lower the energy content.

E10 gasoline has ~104481 BTU gasoline + 7600 BTU ethanol = 112081 BTU/gallon.
Straight gasoline has ~116,090 Btu/gal.

This represents a loss of ~3.45% energy content.

Exactly. Water plus EtOH reduce the power output of every engine designed to run on gasoline.

But again, if we crank a billion BTUs per intake cycle worth of fuel into the cylinder, it wouldn't matter one iota if our expansion medium didn't expand efficiently.

Conversely, if we can utilize an expansion medium that expands more than air while using the same or less energy input as air, we come out ahead. Water is that expansion medium. We throw a lot of the heat of combustion away via temperature peaks because air doesn't expand linearly. It's not an Ideal Gas. We can get the same expansion (and thus cylinder pressure) from ~500 F peak combustion temperature with water flashing to steam as would require 1300 F for air alone.

The water's there (and eventually, the hydroxide will be there) for the express purpose of facilitating in-cylinder combustion and expansion. The water will be preheated to just below its latent heat of vaporization, so it doesn't have to absorb much heat in-cylinder to flash to steam.

Hemiacetals are notoriously unstable compounds. They stand in for the hydroxide radicals that will be used at a later date. Having hemiacetals in-cylinder isn't a bad thing.

There's a reason Racing Discol 1 became popular amongst racers (purportedly it gave power and fuel efficiency gains over straight gasoline). I intend to re-discover exactly what that reason was, and if it's still applicable to modern-day fuel.

I don't get where you think these hydroxides will come from or the preheating of the water before injection.

The liquid to be injected will be preheated from coolant heat exiting the engine. By getting the water as near its latent heat of vaporization as possible prior to it reaching the cylinder, the amount of in-cylinder heat it must absorb to flash to steam is minimized. Thus it flashes faster and contributes more to cylinder pressure.

But it's not just water, since the water is in the fuel... and evaporating the fuel will also have benefits as regards quicker combustion.

http://www.chevron.com/documents/pdf/MotorGasTechReview.pdf
On page 39, it shows the carbon number percentages for regular and premium gasolines, as well as the evaporation percentages versus temperature.

For regular gasoline, at 210F (temperature of coolant exiting the engine), we'd evaporate the gasoline up to carbon number 7, which would account for ~63% of regular gasoline.

Here's a chart showing the vapor pressures of the various carbon number hydrocarbons:

http://petrowiki.org/images/6/6a/Vol1_Page_243_Image_0001.png

The hydroxides are easy enough to make. H₂O's constituent basic and acidic components during electrolysis are OH^- (hydroxide) and H₃O⁺ (hydronium). A voltage applied to water separates out the hydroxide and hydronium. Draw from your water tank at the hydroxide end to inject hydroxide-rich water. No large electrolysis current needed, just voltage to keep the basic and acidic components of water separated. It doesn't take a lot of hydroxide to greatly assist combustion.

Like I said earlier it is FAR easier to advance the Ign. timing, and inject (separately) pure water. Get the amount of advance, and water correct, and you will see an increase in both power, and MPG. This has nothing to do with Unicorn pee theory. It is simply as you expressed... The expansion of gasses in the cylinder. The advanced ignition allows for more power to be extracted from the gasoline, and the steam expansion of the water adds the "bonus" power.
Only problem is that in the long term use of water injectors the oil suffers, as do the cylinder walls, and piston rings. The cylinder is essentially steam cleaned on every cycle, and more frequent oil changes are needed as to correct steam passing the rings.

The cylinder will be WPC treated to maximize its oil holding capability and thus ring seal. It'll be WS2 coated to minimize friction. The piston will have a Total Seal gapless top ring to minimize blowby. The engine will be run hotter, so any water in the oil should boil off.

There is a current thread on peroxides as fuel here... http://www.sciencemadness.org/talk/viewthread.php?tid=62803

That's nice, but I didn't say anything about peroxides. I said hydroxide.
Peroxide is H₂O₂. Hydroxide is OH^-.
Peroxide is one step up the chain in facilitating combustion. I'm going for that last step in the chain. Less delay.

It did not get too in depth because the topic has been beaten to death as has Ethanol in gasoline.

It's a fun idea to play with, and some small gains may be realized but the side issues far outweigh the tiny advantage. I did far better with methanol, and benzine blends, and almost stock jetting 30 years ago.

EtOH is one of two future fuels (bio-diesel, and EtOH) if we INSIST on keeping IC engines as the norm. As an additive it sucks, Literately sucks power, absorbs water, and creates mechanical problems in vehicles not designed to use it.
It (EtOH) is cheap, and readily available. Benzine, and methanol are not. Pure gasoline is the best, and least expensive option.

I wanted to add this thought...
It may be a better experiment to see if you can properly gauge your injection system to run on diesel fuel(s).
Perhaps some combo of diethelether, and diesel...

Then you're getting into changing out not only your connecting rod and piston, but your bearings as well, to handle the shock load of diesel deflagration. If I were to do that, I'd make a really beefy direct-injection engine that was designed to detonate.

[zombie]

Well... Have fun.

I know you're a smart fella that loves fiddeling w/ engines so this should be a ball for you.