The Ethanol Papers - Paperturn manuscript - Flipbook - Page 273
per tank, stop and go city/suburban driving. I drive a 2002 Toyota Sienna. I've
heard a lot of hate stories about ethanol.
At first I was siding with the other side about ethanol sucking water out of the
air because I was biased, but when I heard your analogy of setting out ethanol
in a glass and seeing whether or not the glass filled due to it sucking water out
of the air sold me. The ethanol would of course, evaporate.
On top of that condensation isn't the same thing as hygro-whatever-you-call-it,
like you explained. So why are you so pro-ethanol?
Reply from MARC:
Hey, Grey, I hope you had a great Christmas and that tonight will kick off a
special New Year for you and your family.
Let me start with the 'ethanol in a glass' situation and its related issues:
Of course evaporation would take place and that's one of the factors that makes
the claim that ethanol sucks water out of the air so ridiculous: if your fuel was
exposed to open air it would evaporate. This is true with gasoline as well, only
slower. The point is, when would you have a situation in which you would just
have your engine fuel left in the open? It doesn't happen in cars or motorcycles,
except by accident; and it doesn't even happen in boats. Mercury Marine - the
largest manufacturer of marine engines positively states that "ethanol does not
grab water molecules out of the air." And they correctly attribute water collecting
in boat fuel tanks as the result of condensation, not because the ethanol in the
ethanol-gasoline blend sucked the water molecules out of the air.
Condensation is not the same as the hygroscopic process. People either ignorantly or intentionally confuse the two. An overly simplified way to look at what
the hygroscopic process does is to say that a hygroscopic substance has a
"wicking effect" on adjacent water. Cotton balls are a hygroscopic substance. If
you place a cotton ball on your kitchen counter (instead of a glass of alcohol)
the cotton ball doesn't suck moisture out of the air. But, if you place some water
immediately adjacent to the cotton ball, the cotton ball will wick up the water
and "hold" it. This is essentially what ethanol does. Ethanol breaks down water
molecules and it can hold the water elements. This is why Dry Gas (ethanol) is
used in gasoline engines/tanks when there is water present because of
