Can ethanol damage your engine?" Do you want to know the truth? We have more corn than we know what to do with -- and corn is cheap. It's taken the place of cane sugar in most of our prepared and packaged foods. Not only that, but it's increasingly sneaking into our gasoline, too, in the form of ethanol. Conventional wisdom tells us that an inexpensive, domestically produced substitute for fuel would be a good thing; unfortunately, it's not that simple. With few exceptions, ethanol is not an acceptable fuel on its own merits. How much of a difference can there be between E10 fuel, which is in widespread use (although not warmly embraced) and E15 fuel? So what's the big deal? Mike Allen of Popular Mechanics says that under ideal conditions, a gasoline-ethanol blend is perfectly acceptable. Let's assume that most of the time the fuel's environmental conditions aren't seriously compromised, its ethanol stays in suspension, and the gasoline is properly reaching its destination.
E15 and Engines - Can Ethanol Damage my Engine. Other Alcohol Issues Alcohol is corrosive and can degrade plastic, rubber or even metal parts in the fuel system that weren't engineered to use alcohol-bearing fuel. Consequently, that antique Evinrude outboard or '60s lawn tractor you bought at the swap meet might need some upgrading to stay together on today's gas. That means corrosion-resistant tanks, alcohol-tolerant rubber lines, seals and fuel-pump diaphragms, and plastic fuel-system parts that won't swell up in the presence of alcohol.
Vintage boats with internal fiberglass tanks often have issues with the coating inside the tank failing, sometimes requiring massive structural modifications. Highly tuned two-stroke engines will run leaner (and consequently hotter) on the lower Btu/gallon alcohol mix, potentially leading to melted pistons and scuffed cylinder walls. Advice The common question I get: Where can I buy alcohol-free gasoline? To avoid phase separation, avoid long-term fuel storage. And why on earth do we need E15? Microbiology Online | Society for General Microbiology | About Microbiology - Microbes and climate change - Microbes and biofuels. Biofuels are made from living things or the waste that they produce. One of the most common biofuels, ethanol, is produced from plants. The plant material used is the edible part of the plant such as sugar cane (Brazil) and sugar beet (France) or corn kernels (USA) because it can easily be broken down to sugar (glucose). The sugar can then be fermented (broken down) to ethanol by microbes such as the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae.
Not only is it expensive to convert edible plant material into ethanol; ethical issues are also involved. It has been argued that we shouldn’t grow food stuffs for fuel when people in some developing countries don’t have enough to eat. There is a worry that Brazil will remove large sections of their rainforest to produce sugar cane. This is an issue because the trees in the rainforest use up huge amounts of carbon dioxide while carrying out photosynthesis. Scientists are investigating the use of cellulose to produce ethanol. Fleet Test and Evaluation - Biodiesel. Biodiesel Cons" Photo courtesy Paul RoesslerMicroalgae, organisms from which a diesel-like fuel can be derived: Cultured in the American southwestern deserts, NREL-developed microalgae may one day produce large amounts of lipids for conversion to biodiesel fuel.
Of course, nothing is without penalty, and biodiesel does have its drawbacks. Some have to do with the fuel itself, and many have to do with the bigger picture. One of the problems with the fuel itself is the increase in NOx in biodiesel emissions. Often, in diesel fuel manufacturing, when you decrease the amount of particulate matter in the emissions, there is a corresponding increase in nitrogen oxides, which contribute to smog formation. Though some of this can be addressed by adjusting the engine itself, that's not always feasible.
There are technologies being researched to reduce NOx amounts in biodiesel emissions. Another problem is biodiesel's behavior as a solvent. So how much do we make?