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Here's an odd fuel alternative.
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mehrlich, <br /> <br />To add to Overmod's comments, higher chain alcohols such as isopropanol and butanol do have higher energy densities than methanol and ethanol, and come close to matching the energy density of gasoline and diesel. It is possible to distill higher chain alcohols from both starches and cellulose, but again the money you spend on all the equipment and ingredients will far outweight the money you would otherwise spend on gasoline, even with the projected price increases coming down the road. Unless you are making alternative fuels from the left-overs of some other process you are involved in, or unless you are making the stuff just for the fun of it, we should leave the production of alternative fuels to the mass producers. <br /> <br />FYI - I did find a reference to experiments back in the 1980's in which folks were adding solvents to used vegetable oils and then burning the mixture in regular diesel engines. The article mentioned the use of alcohols as the solvents. I wonder if anyone had tried to mix acetone with vegetable oil to come up with an emulsion that could burn in compression-ignition engines. Since acetone immediately miscates fully with other liquids (and stays fully mixed over time), it is possible the solvent action of acetone would act to counter the carbonization and plugging characteristics of raw vegetable oil on the injectors of compression-ignition engines (and vis versa e.g. the solvent action of acetone would be mitigated by being blended with a naturally lubricating liquid). Since used vegetable oil is a byproduct of other processes, it is appropriate to try and make this otherwise low value waste product into a valuable fuel alternative, as long as the cost to do so is less than the increased cost of petroleum-based fuels.
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