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  #1  
Old 10-11-2011, 08:36 PM
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deej deej is offline
 
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: Brunswick, ME
Posts: 313
Default Alcohol Separation System

Interesting!

http://portablefuelsystems.com/AlcoholSeparator.htm

Claims to separate the ethanol from mogas. Anyone have any information on this? PIREPS?

Anyone going to Copperstate that can check this out first hand?

I guesstimate it would take me about 4 years of flying to cover the purchase cost. Too bad you can't drink the removed ethanol! *grin*

-Dj
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  #2  
Old 10-11-2011, 08:49 PM
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airguy airguy is offline
 
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Location: Garden City, Tx
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Default

It's been discussed many times. E10 fuel without the ethanol is not good fuel - it's fuel base stock with poor detonation/octane performance.
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  #3  
Old 10-11-2011, 08:59 PM
TexasRV8r TexasRV8r is offline
 
Join Date: Aug 2010
Location: Texas
Posts: 7
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by airguy View Post
It's been discussed many times. E10 fuel without the ethanol is not good fuel - it's fuel base stock with poor detonation/octane performance.
Correct. Ethanol has an octane rating of about 115.... so any ethanol removed would need to be replaced with a volume of a high-octane component like non-oxygenated racing fuel in the appropriate quantity to bring the octane up to spec..... else the user risks detonation in the cylinder(s) from the non-spec de-oxygenated fuel...
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  #4  
Old 10-11-2011, 09:17 PM
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deej deej is offline
 
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: Brunswick, ME
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They claim starting with 90.8 octane and end up with 89.5 when done.
Would love to have someone talk to them in person and get more details on exactly how they are accomplishing this.

-Dj
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  #5  
Old 10-12-2011, 04:05 AM
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N941WR N941WR is offline
 
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: SC
Posts: 12,887
Default

Test your local fuel supplier first.

I have found that around Charlotte much of the fuel does not contain that garbage. Also, the one ethanol plant in NC closed last fall, so the cost of it is hopefully driving ethanol towards extinction.
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  #6  
Old 10-12-2011, 07:24 AM
David-aviator David-aviator is offline
 
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: Chesterfield, Missouri
Posts: 4,514
Default Non ethanol fuel at airports and other places....

Quote:
Originally Posted by TexasRV8r View Post
Correct. Ethanol has an octane rating of about 115.... so any ethanol removed would need to be replaced with a volume of a high-octane component like non-oxygenated racing fuel in the appropriate quantity to bring the octane up to spec..... else the user risks detonation in the cylinder(s) from the non-spec de-oxygenated fuel...
It is my understanding ethanol is added at distribution centers just before the fuel is loaded on tanker trucks for delivery because alcohol is corrosive to pipe lines.

Locally, 93 octane fuel (so designated) without ethanol is being sold and delivered by a co-op if one has a storage capacity of 100 gallons or more. Is that fuel 93 octane?

What about FBO's that sell mogas without ethanol - some 87, some 91 or 93. Where do they get the fuel and is it de-rated because of no ethanol?

There seems to be a lot of conflicting information on this subject.
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  #7  
Old 10-12-2011, 08:57 AM
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deej deej is offline
 
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According to their website, they started with 90.8 octane, and ended up
with 89.5 when they were done.

Some simple calculations come out pretty close to that:

91 octane fuel is made up of 10% ethanol which is 115 octane, and 90%
base fuel of some octane value X.

9/10(X) + 1/10(115) = 91 octane

Solving for X = ((91 - 1/10(115))(10))/9 = 88.33 octane

Anyone on here happen to work in the petroleum industry and can verify if this really will work?

The other question is what to do with the removed ethanol/water mix that is left over? How to dispose of it, or what other use does it have?

Here is a reply I got from the company:

The process does require two 5-gallon buckets that are provided by the user. One bucket has at least four gallons of clean water in it. The other bucket is the drain bucket. You simply put the hoses in the respective buckets and the system (under software control) will draw the water in and do the ?washing? using a multi-stage/multi-pass algorithm that was developed over many months.

We are planning to have an ?add-on? version for people with existing fuel deliver systems. There has been a lot of interest, and our software was developed with that exact scenario in mind. All of the ?guts? of this system are contained in, quite literally a ?black-box?, and lend itself well to adding on to varying systems.

Thanks again for your interest! If you have any more questions, please feel free to ask.

Nick Myers
Vice President/CTO
Use our A-S-S to Fix Your Gas!
(480) 639-3140
nmyers@portablefuelsystems.com
www.PortableFuelSystems.com
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  #8  
Old 10-12-2011, 09:29 AM
jrs14855 jrs14855 is offline
 
Join Date: Apr 2008
Location: Lake Havasu City AZ
Posts: 2,393
Default octane

In the sixties there were three different grades of avgas. 80 octane, 93octane???(or something close to 93) and 100/130. This was before 100low lead. IIRC the 0 320 lyc 150 hp or less was rated for 80 octane, the 160 hp and 0 360 180 hp for 93 octane. I would think the low compression Lycs would be fine with the auto fuel with ethanol removed, but not the high compression.
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  #9  
Old 01-04-2012, 02:14 PM
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nomocom nomocom is offline
 
Join Date: Jun 2009
Location: Caldwell ID
Posts: 253
Default Octane impact

Quote:
Originally Posted by deej View Post
9/10(X) + 1/10(115) = 91 octane

Solving for X = ((91 - 1/10(115))(10))/9 = 88.33 octane

Anyone on here happen to work in the petroleum industry and can verify if this really will work?
When working with fuels, don't assume relationships are linear. That said, rule of thumb for blenders- adding 10 percent ethanol to gasoline bumps octane about 2 points, a bit more when added to low octane, and bit less to the old premium we used to see at 92-93 octane. I don't have the data handy, but the rule of thumb would likely have come from seeing the results of substantial numbers of ASTM octane tests.

We had a local retailer claiming 95 octane mogas up until a few years ago. We don't see that now because the fuel (RFG) comes from the refinery assuming it will get the octane bump from ethanol addition at the rack.

As far as the business model, selling a device known to create a by-product that has no practical method of disposal, seems like the cart is in front of the horse.
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  #10  
Old 01-04-2012, 02:30 PM
N427EF N427EF is offline
 
Join Date: Oct 2005
Posts: 1,516
Default Good News!

A little side drift here but this may be of interest to the mogas users.
Congress voted against renewing the ethanol subsidy (6BillionDollars per year) for various reasons
too political to get into it here.
It may not be long before you will be able to get ethanol free mogas again and you won't need that separation contraption.
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