Quote:
Originally Posted by RedDevil
I'm no expert on this, but I've read that pure ethanol is very aggressive on aluminum and other alloys, while even just 1 % of water would stop that, and a higher water content could even de-oxidize it (iirc).
The effect is the same in ethanol/gasoline blends, as the gasoline is pretty much inert to the alloy.
We're talking about a 85% gas / 14.4% ethanol / 0.6% water mixture over here. So 15% of 'wet' ethanol.
It is hard to find anything on the subject that's not written in Dutch, but here goes. To make matters worse, HE.15 happens to be some kind of aluminum alloy code. |
It has been a while since I studied anything chemistry related but my understanding was that water was necessary for the ethanol to disassociate and form a weak acid, which is then corrosive to some metals. Maybe there's another mechanism for the corrosion.
If water is tolerable, that's built in water injection. (I believe that Ferrari did use a water and fuel mix in the early days of turbocharging in F1.)