Influence of ethyl acetate addition on phase stability and fuel characteristics of hydrous ethanol-gasoline blends

Abstract

Hydrous ethanol or commercial ethanol is regarded as a promising additive for gasoline. Its low cost and many other advantages, such as increasing the octane number and reduction of harmful emissions, motivate the researchers to investigate its use as an economic octane booster. The most common drawback of using hydrous ethanol as a gasoline additive is the phase separation problem. In this study, the effect of adding ethyl acetate (EA) on the phase stability, distillation curve, vapor pressure, vapor lock index and octane number of hydrous ethanol-gasoline blends was investigated. The reference fuel blends were formulated by mixing hydrous ethanol (96%) with hydrocarbon-based gasoline in different percentages (5, 10, 15 and 20 vol%). For studying the effect of ethyl acetate on the fuel specifications, it was mixed with 15% hydrous ethanol-gasoline blend in different percentage (3, 6, 9 and 12 vol%). The experimental results indicated that ethyl acetate has a good ability to increase the phase stability and the octane number of the hydrous ethanol-gasoline blends without causing adverse impacts on the other studied specifications.