Alcohol can be obtained from nature and it can manufacture very easily so alcohol as a fuel is very attractive. It is one of the liquid fuel alternatives of gasoline used in a combustion engine. There are different types of alcohol but some main types are methanol, ethanol, propanol, and butanol. Let us have a deep insight into the disadvantages of alcohol used as a fuel.
Disadvantages of alcohol as a fuel :
- It contains oxygen and therefore requires less air for stoichiometric combustion.
- It has a low energy content because the calorific value of the fuel is almost half.
- Combustion of alcohols produces more aldehydes in the exhaust and this would be a serious exhaust pollution problem.
- It is much more corrosive than gasoline on copper, brass, aluminium, rubber and many plastics.
- With long term use of alcohol fuel lines and tanks, gaskets and even metal engine parts can deteriorate very early especially methanol is very corrosive on metals.
- It has poor cold-weather starting characteristics due to low vapour pressure and evaporation.
- Alcohols have poor ignition characteristics too.
- Alcohols have invisible flames that are hazardous when handling fuel.
- The danger of storage tank flammability air can leak into storage tanks and create a combustible mixture.
- Because of low flame temperatures, there will be fewer NOx emissions.
- Alcohol has a strong odour and it is very offensive.
- In fuel delivery systems, there is a possibility of vapour lock.