The main thing needed for a fuel is the ability to undergo combustion, why cant spirit be used for that cause?
In Sweden you can get a mix of 85% ethanol and 15% gasoline at every gas station. The reason why pure ethanol is not used in Sweden is the difficulty with cold start since ethanol has a high boiling point as well as a high heat of vaporization.
Butanol (either petrobutanol or biobutanol) can be used in unmodified gasoline engines. Standards for the blending of ethanol and methanol in gasoline exist in many countries(including the EU, the US and Brazil). Approximate equivalent butanol blends can be calculated from the relations between the stochiometric fuel-air ratio of butanol, ethanol and gasoline. Common butanol fuel mixtures for fuel may range from 8% to 16%.
I have attached a paper where SI Engine is run using Methanol, Ethanol, LPG and Iso- Octane . Both the first law efficiency and second law efficiency data is given. It is shown that Ethanol and Methanol shows higher efficiency at higher compression ratio. But the reason it is not usually used is because of its high cost of production and lower second law efficiency. Ethanol has to be produced from crops so there is also a need of huge areas of land for large scale production. Especially difficult in developing countries like India and China where there is a shortage of land for producing food crops.
Hi Aashray
A conversion of agricultural products like corn into ethanol for fuel ,i.e., ethanol gasoline for vehicles is well known method.
Most likely it can be, with more or less modifications to the engine and more or less refinement to the fuel needed.
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