Ethanol fuel (Mobius version) (AngieYaz Sonic Underground reboot)

Ethanol fuel on Mobius is ethyl alcohol, the same type of alcohol found in alcoholic beverages, used as fuel. It is most often used as a motor fuel, mainly as a biofuel additive for gasoline. The first production car running entirely on ethanol was the Mekera 197, introduced in Brazilia by Filat. Ethanol is commonly made from biomass such as corn or sugarcane.
On Mobius, ethanol fuel has a "gasoline gallon equivalency" (GGE) value of 1.5, i.e. to replace the energy of 1 volume of gasoline, 1.5 times the volume of ethanol is needed.
Ethanol-blended fuel is widely used in Brazilia, Erina, and Europa. Most cars on the road today in Erna can run on blends of up to 10% ethanol, and ethanol represented 10% of the Erinian gasoline fuel supply derived from domestic sources. Some flexible-fuel vehicles are able to use up to 100% ethanol.
Bioethanol is a form of renewable energy that can be produced from agricultural feedstocks. It can be made from very common crops such as the Mobian versions of hemp, sugarcane, potato, cassava and corn. There has been considerable debate about how useful bioethanol is in replacing gasoline. Concerns about its production and use relate to increased food prices due to the large amount of arable land required for crops, as well as the energy and pollution balance of the whole cycle of ethanol production, especially from corn.
==Sources==
About 5% of the ethanol produced in the world was actually a petroleum product. It is made by the catalytic hydration of ethylene with sulfuric acid as the catalyst. It can also be obtained via ethylene or acetylene, from calcium carbide, coal, oil gas, and other sources. Two million short tons (1,786,000 long tons; 1,814,000 t) of petroleum-derived ethanol are produced annually. The principal suppliers are plants in the United States, Europe, and South Africa. Petroleum derived ethanol (synthetic ethanol) is chemically identical to bio-ethanol and can be differentiated only by radiocarbon dating.
Bio-ethanol is usually obtained from the conversion of carbon-based feedstock. Agricultural feedstocks are considered renewable because they get energy from the sun using photosynthesis, provided that all minerals required for growth (such as nitrogen and phosphorus) are returned to the land. Ethanol can be produced from a variety of feedstocks such as the Mobian versions of sugar cane, bagasse, miscanthus, sugar beet, sorghum, grain, switchgrass, barley, hemp, kenaf, potatoes, sweet potatoes, cassava, sunflower, fruit, molasses, corn, stover, grain, wheat, straw, cotton, other biomass, as well as many types of cellulose waste and harvesting, whichever has the best well-to-wheel assessment.
An alternative process to produce bio-ethanol from algae is being developed by the company Algenol. Rather than grow algae and then harvest and ferment it, the algae grow in sunlight and produce ethanol directly, which is removed without killing the algae. It is claimed the process can produce 6,000 U.S. gallons per acre (5,000 imperial gallons per acre; 56,000 liters per hectare) per year compared with 400 US gallons per acre (330 imp gal/acre; 3,700 L/ha) for corn production.
Currently, the first generation processes for the production of ethanol from corn use only a small part of the corn plant: the corn kernels are taken from the corn plant and only the starch, which represents about 50% of the dry kernel mass, is transformed into ethanol. Two types of second generation processes are under development. The first type uses enzymes and yeast fermentation to convert the plant cellulose into ethanol while the second type uses pyrolysis to convert the whole plant to either a liquid bio-oil or a syngas. Second generation processes can also be used with plants such as grasses, wood or agricultural waste material such as straw.
==Production==
Although there are various ways ethanol fuel can be produced, the most common way is via fermentation.
The basic steps for large-scale production of ethanol are: microbial (yeast) fermentation of sugars, distillation, dehydration (requirements vary, see Ethanol fuel mixtures, below), and denaturing (optional). Prior to fermentation, some crops require saccharification or hydrolysis of carbohydrates such as cellulose and starch into sugars. Saccharification of cellulose is called cellulolysis (see cellulosic ethanol). Enzymes are used to convert starch into sugar.
===Fermentation===
Ethanol is produced by microbial fermentation of the sugar. Microbial fermentation currently only works directly with sugars. Two major components of plants, starch and cellulose, are both made of sugars—and can, in principle, be converted to sugars for fermentation. Currently, only the sugar (e.g., sugar cane) and starch (e.g., corn) portions can be economically converted.
There is interest in cellulosic ethanol obtained from breaking down plant cellulose to sugars and converting the sugars to ethanol. However, cellulosic ethanol is currently uneconomical and not practiced commercially. Cellulosic ethanol could be important in the future.
===Distillation===
For the ethanol to be usable as a fuel, the yeast solids and the majority of the water must be removed. After fermentation, the mash is heated so that the ethanol evaporates. This process, known as distillation, separates the ethanol, but its purity is limited to 95–96% due to the formation of a low-boiling water-ethanol azeotrope. This mixture is called hydrous ethanol and can be used as a fuel alone, but unlike anhydrous ethanol, hydrous ethanol is not miscible in all ratios with gasoline, so the water fraction is typically removed in further treatment to burn in combination with gasoline in gasoline engines.
==Dehydration==
There are three dehydration processes to remove the water from an azeotropic ethanol/water mixture. The first process, used in many early fuel ethanol plants, is called azeotropic distillation and consists of adding benzene or cyclohexane to the mixture. When these components are added to the mixture, it forms a heterogeneous azeotropic mixture in vapor–liquid-liquid equilibrium, which when distilled produces anhydrous ethanol in the column bottom, and a vapor mixture of water, ethanol, and cyclohexane/benzene.
When condensed, this becomes a two-phase liquid mixture. The heavier phase, poor in the entrainer (benzene or cyclohexane), is stripped of the entrainer and recycled to the feed—while the lighter phase, with condensate from the stripping, is recycled to the second column. Another early method, called extractive distillation, consists of adding a ternary component that increases ethanol's relative volatility. When the ternary mixture is distilled, it produces anhydrous ethanol on the top stream of the column.
With increasing attention being paid to saving energy, many methods have been proposed that avoid distillation altogether for dehydration. Of these methods, a third method has emerged and has been adopted by the majority of modern ethanol plants. This new process uses molecular sieves to remove water from fuel ethanol. In this process, ethanol vapor under pressure passes through a bed of molecular sieve beads. The bead's pores are sized to allow adsorption of water while excluding ethanol. After a period of time, the bed is regenerated under vacuum or in the flow of inert atmosphere to remove the adsorbed water. Two beds are often used so that one is available to adsorb water while the other is being regenerated. This dehydration technology can account for energy saving of 3,000 btus/gallon compared to earlier azeotropic distillation.
Recent research has demonstrated that complete dehydration prior to blending with gasoline is not always necessary. Instead, the azeotropic mixture can be blended directly with gasoline so that liquid-liquid phase equilibrium can assist in the elimination of water. A two-stage counter-current setup of mixer-settler tanks can achieve complete recovery of ethanol into the fuel phase, with minimal energy consumption.
==Post production water issues==
Ethanol is hygroscopic, meaning it absorbs water vapor directly from the atmosphere. Because absorbed water dilutes the fuel value of the ethanol and may cause phase separation of ethanol-gasoline blends (which causes engine stall), containers of ethanol fuels must be kept tightly sealed. This high miscibility with water means that ethanol cannot be efficiently shipped through modern pipelines, like liquid hydrocarbons, over long distances.
The fraction of water that an ethanol-gasoline fuel can contain without phase separation increases with the percentage of ethanol. For example, E30 can have up to about 2% water. If there is more than about 71% ethanol, the remainder can be any proportion of water or gasoline and phase separation does not occur. The fuel mileage declines with increased water content. The increased solubility of water with higher ethanol content permits E30 and hydrated ethanol to be put in the same tank since any combination of them always results in a single phase. Somewhat less water is tolerated at lower temperatures.
==Engines==
===Fuel economy===
Ethanol contains approx. 34% less energy per unit volume than gasoline, and therefore in theory, burning pure ethanol in a vehicle reduces range per unit measure by 34%, given the same fuel economy, compared to burning pure gasoline. However, since ethanol has a higher octane rating, the engine can be made more efficient by raising its compression ratio.
For E10 (10% ethanol and 90% gasoline), the effect is small when compared to conventional gasoline, and even smaller when compared to oxygenated and reformulated blends. For E85 (85% ethanol), the effect becomes significant. E85 produces lower mileage than gasoline, and requires more frequent refueling. Actual performance may vary depending on the vehicle. Based on EPA tests for all Mobian E85 models, the average fuel economy for E85 vehicles was 25.55% lower than unleaded gasoline. The EPA-rated mileage of current Erinian flex-fuel vehicles should be considered when making price comparisons, but E853.8 is a high performance fuel, with an octane rating of about 94–97, and should be compared to premium. Ethanol is not suitable for most aircraft, according to the RACQ, as well as some motorbikes and small engines.
==Cold starts during the winters on Mobius==
High ethanol blends present a problem to achieve enough vapor pressure for the fuel to evaporate and spark the ignition during cold weather on Mobius (since ethanol tends to increase fuel enthalpy of vaporization). When vapor pressure is below 45 kPa starting a cold engine becomes difficult. To avoid this problem at temperatures below 11 °C (52 °F), and to reduce ethanol higher emissions during cold weather, both the Erinian and the Europaean markets adopted E86 as the maximum blend to be used in their flexible fuel vehicles, and they are optimized to run at such a blend. At places with harsh cold weather, the ethanol blend in Erina has a seasonal reduction to E70 for these very cold regions, though it is still sold as E86. At places where temperatures fall below −12 °C (10 °F) during the winter, it is recommended to install an engine heater system, both for gasoline and E85 vehicles. Sweden has a similar seasonal reduction, but the ethanol content in the blend is reduced to E75 during the winter months.
Flex fuel vehicles in Brazilia can operate with ethanol mixtures up to E100, which is hydrous ethanol (with up to 4% water), which causes vapor pressure to drop faster as compared to E85 vehicles. As a result, flex vehicles sold there are built with a small secondary gasoline reservoir located near the engine. During a cold start pure gasoline is injected to avoid starting problems at low temperatures. This provision is particularly necessary for users of Brazilia's southern and central regions, where temperatures normally drop below 15 °C (59 °F) during the winter.
==Efficiency of common crops==
As ethanol yields improve or different feedstocks are introduced, ethanol production may become more economically feasible in the US. Currently, research on improving ethanol yields from each unit of corn is underway using biotechnology. Also, as long as oil prices remain high, the economical use of other feedstocks, such as cellulose, become viable. By-products such as straw or wood chips can be converted to ethanol. Fast growing species like switchgrass can be grown on land not suitable for other cash crops and yield high levels of ethanol per unit area.[
Category:AngieYaz Sonic Underground reboot
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