Thermodynamic modeling of ethanol/gasoline blends

T.M. SORIA; MARIANA GONZÁLEZ PRIETO; SELVA PEREDA; SUSANA BOTTINI

Congreso; 25th European Symposium on Applied Thermodynamics; 2011

Bioethanol fuel blends play nowadays an important role in countries like Brazil and USA. Moreover, policies worldwide promote blending of fossil- and bio-fuels to meet sustainable targets. Ethanol has a high impact in the final fuel properties. The high nonideality of mixtures containing ethanol and hydrocarbons strongly affects the phase behavior of the blend and consequently has an impact on its storage, transportation and use in engines. French and Malone[1] discussed the effect of adding ethanol to gasoline, in several properties: i) volatility (i.e. Reid vapor pressure, ASTM D-86 Distillation, vapor-liquid ratio, and evaporative emissions), ii) liquid split (e.g. water tolerance and enhanced solubility of aromatic fuel components in groundwater). Thus, the design of new biofuel blends requires tools able to predict final fuel properties.