At the risk of appearing like I've lost it...
I have become interested in the ethanol content of the gasoline I have been purchasing. I googled up test kits and found that they were running anywhere from 20 - 30 bucks or so. For what is essentially an empty *bottle* with a couple of marks on it?! Ridiculous! Plus, they want you to buy some kind of
So, I bought a graduated 100 ml beaker, the tall kind, where each ml was marked off. What you then do is to put 25 ml water in it first. I used distilled water but I don't know if that's really necessary. Then you fill it up to the 100 ml mark with your gasoline test sample, stick a stopper in it, and shake vigorously for a minute or so. Then let it sit a settle for 2-3 minutes. Take a looksee at the phase boundary betwween the water and gasoline...it will be very visible.
If your gasoline had any ethanol in it at all (or even water) you will notice that the boundary is higher than the 25 ml mark that represented how much water you initially put into the beaker. The reason for this is that whatever "contaminants" were in the gasoline have now become absorbed by the water you put into the beaker thus raising the water level to a new mark. You will also notice that there is no longer 100 ml of liquid in the beaker...it didn't go anywhere, it's just that when the ethanol was pulled out of the gasoline it's volume decreased by that amount as it became one with the water you put in.
What you now do is to determine how much higher the boundary is now...that represents in ml how much ethanol was pulled out of the gasoline. Say it's sitting on 30 now, that means you had 5 ml of ethanol contained in the 75 ml of gas you put into the beaker. Now divide the amount of the ethanol, 5 ml, by the amount of the gasoline you originally put into the beaker, 75 ml, and you come up with .06 or 6%; ie, your gasoline sample contained 6% ethanol.
I suspect this simplified version is not as accurate as a more controlled test but I believe it is accurate as it needs to be to get a pretty good idea of what all you're putting into your gas tank.
All without a "kit".
You could even make your own calibrated container for free...I bought my 100 ml beaker for 4 bucks because it makes it so easy - each division is 1% and it just makes it easier to do the math. Plus, I have other ideas in mind for it so I rationalized the purchase.
This ain't rocket science I don't see the need to buy a rocket to do it.
This isn't entirely original...just some ideas strung together while researching "test kits". Hmm, perhaps I could market tiny empty bottles and sell them for 20-30 bucks too...
That's my story and Im sticking to it.
ps:
Sometimes weird ideas pop into my head when I'm playing around with such stuff. In this case the weird idea was: why couldn't I mix up a gallon of gasoline/water mixture in something like a sun tea bottle, let it settle, open up the bottom valve and let the water run out and voila - pure gasoline with no ethanol remains in the jug.
I have become interested in the ethanol content of the gasoline I have been purchasing. I googled up test kits and found that they were running anywhere from 20 - 30 bucks or so. For what is essentially an empty *bottle* with a couple of marks on it?! Ridiculous! Plus, they want you to buy some kind of
So, I bought a graduated 100 ml beaker, the tall kind, where each ml was marked off. What you then do is to put 25 ml water in it first. I used distilled water but I don't know if that's really necessary. Then you fill it up to the 100 ml mark with your gasoline test sample, stick a stopper in it, and shake vigorously for a minute or so. Then let it sit a settle for 2-3 minutes. Take a looksee at the phase boundary betwween the water and gasoline...it will be very visible.
If your gasoline had any ethanol in it at all (or even water) you will notice that the boundary is higher than the 25 ml mark that represented how much water you initially put into the beaker. The reason for this is that whatever "contaminants" were in the gasoline have now become absorbed by the water you put into the beaker thus raising the water level to a new mark. You will also notice that there is no longer 100 ml of liquid in the beaker...it didn't go anywhere, it's just that when the ethanol was pulled out of the gasoline it's volume decreased by that amount as it became one with the water you put in.
What you now do is to determine how much higher the boundary is now...that represents in ml how much ethanol was pulled out of the gasoline. Say it's sitting on 30 now, that means you had 5 ml of ethanol contained in the 75 ml of gas you put into the beaker. Now divide the amount of the ethanol, 5 ml, by the amount of the gasoline you originally put into the beaker, 75 ml, and you come up with .06 or 6%; ie, your gasoline sample contained 6% ethanol.
I suspect this simplified version is not as accurate as a more controlled test but I believe it is accurate as it needs to be to get a pretty good idea of what all you're putting into your gas tank.
All without a "kit".
You could even make your own calibrated container for free...I bought my 100 ml beaker for 4 bucks because it makes it so easy - each division is 1% and it just makes it easier to do the math. Plus, I have other ideas in mind for it so I rationalized the purchase.
This ain't rocket science I don't see the need to buy a rocket to do it.
This isn't entirely original...just some ideas strung together while researching "test kits". Hmm, perhaps I could market tiny empty bottles and sell them for 20-30 bucks too...
That's my story and Im sticking to it.
ps:
Sometimes weird ideas pop into my head when I'm playing around with such stuff. In this case the weird idea was: why couldn't I mix up a gallon of gasoline/water mixture in something like a sun tea bottle, let it settle, open up the bottom valve and let the water run out and voila - pure gasoline with no ethanol remains in the jug.
