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Ethanol Vehicle Fuel |
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3.2.3 Ethanol
Ethanol is ethyl alcohol and it is the world’s most commonly used biofuel. Bio-ethanol is typically produced from crops such as sugar cane/beet, wheat and corn.
Note: Ethanol can also be produced from other sources, such as petroleum and coal.
In 2007 countries with bio-ethanol programmes include Brazil, China, Columbia, Sweden and the USA.
Subject to the suitability of the engine it can be used as an alternative to, or blended with, unleaded petrol. An “E” number is used to indicate the petrol to ethanol ratio.
E85, for example, representing a mixture of 85 percent ethanol and 15 percent petrol.
Ethanol, with water content of not more than 1%, can be blended with petrol in varying ratios.
E10, sometimes called gasohol, can be used in the engines of most modern cars.
In February 2006 E20 became the standard ethanol-petrol mixture sold in Brazil.
In 2007 Brazil was the world’s largest producer of ethanol, which it derives from sugar cane.
Cars can be made to run on E100 but problems have been encountered starting the engine when the temperature is below 15 degrees C (59 degrees F).
Ethanol contains about 27% less energy than petrol (84,000 BTUs per US gallon compared to 115,000 BTUs for petrol).
Cars running on ethanol currently use more fuel per mile than those running on petrol. Differences of up to 15% have been reported. Check this %.
Fuel economy is expected to improve significantly as higher compression engines designed to run only on E100 become available.
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