(quoted from post at 05:35:41 01/14/12) Just a heads-up here folks, I responded to the video on YouTube in the comments section. I explained in detail how their clip is misleading at best.
A rep from Starbrite responded with more nonsense, which I then refuted as well.
Guess what? The "owner" of the clip, (Starbrite Corp.), blocked me from commenting any further....AND....removed what I'd already posted. I used no profanity, did no name-calling....nothing. I merely pointed out the inaccuracies and exaggerations. Then I challenged them to do an actual side-by-side test.
Comments removed. Commenter blocked.
That's how they operate.
Brokenot - I seen your comments there earlier in the week, I noticed they were not there this morning when I reviewed the video. I reviewed the video because I wanted to duplicate the test using two samples, one of E-10 and the other of straight gasoline. It is winter in Indiana so I don't have enough humidity in my shop to actually condense water on the sides of the jars. However, my objective was to compare the evaporative cooling of gasoline with and without ethanol. As gasoline or ethanol evaporates the Latent Heat of Vaporization cools the remaining liquid. The latent heat of gasoline is 150 btu/lb and ethanal is significantly greater at 396 btu/lb, however the latent heat of E-10 should be 175 or not that much different than gasoline.
For the test I poured fresh E10 (purchased last week) from a sealed container into two beakers, 500 ml into each. To obtain straight gasoline I added 50 ml of water to one breaker, this was to separate out the ethanol. A 500 ml sample of E-10 should contain 50 ml of ethanol, indeed 100 ml of ethanol/water mixture settled at the bottom verifying 1) it was E-10 and 2) the gasoline floating above the mixture is now free of ethanol.
The test containers were two dishes (3.5" dia x 1.5" deep) with a thermocouple to read the liquid temperature of each sample and a small fan positioned to blow across them. Into one dish I poured 100 ml of E-10 and labeled the dish as E-10. Into the other dish I poured 100 ml of the gasoline floating on top of the ethanol/water mixture and labeled this dish as gasoline. The gasoline sample started out at 63.4 degrees and the E-10 sample started at 62.6 degrees. Once the fan was turned on the liquid temperature began dropping. After 8 minutes the gasoline reached a low of 33.6 and the E-10 reached a low of 34.4 degrees. After 12 minutes the liquid temperatures were 34.8 for the gasoline and 35.2 for the E-10. At this point the test was stopped as the fumes were beginning to build up in the shop. The ambient air temperature inside the shop was 68 F and the humidity was 18 %, therefore no significant water condensation was noted. For water to condense on the sides of the test containers the liquid temperature would have needed to be below 23 F. At a shop humidity of approximately 30 %, water would have started to condense as it did in the video.
In conclusion, the evaporative cooling effect is similar for gasoline and E-10. This cooling effect is why the jar remained cool enough to continue to condense water as shown in Jeff's video after a hour of the fan blowing warm humid air across it.
Comments on the video:
1) Some may argue ethanol pulls water from the air, that may be - I don't know, however, in the video condensation forming on the sides of the container is proposed as the dominant mode of water formation. Had Jeff used two samples in his demostration I believe he would have observed similar amounts of water in the bottom of each jar.
2) Fuel tanks need to be vented to allow the fuel to drain out. The vent is typically a small hole which prevents free/active air exhange within the tank. There are no fuel tanks constructed with straight sides and an open top. This would allow for an explosive mixture to form as the air mixed freely with the fuel vapors. In addition rapid evaporation of the light ends in the fuel would result in hard starting and poor throttle response. Therefore, the video demonstrated a condition which does not exist.
3) The test is easy to run and I plan to repeat it this summer when we have some humidity to verify the amounts of condensate. This time outside - I still have a headache from the fumes.
Sorry - for the long post hope, someone finds it informative.
