How to test for water in Methanol ??

[Ron Varnas]

Hi all,

Are there any easy tests one can do to check if theres water in Methanol ?

I have @ 10 gallons in a container, thats sat in the workshop for about 6 yrs now,
would be a shame to dispose of it not to mention the price.

[Jim Kraft]

If it has been tightly capped, it should be good. I have used fuel that was severall years old without problems.

[Terry Bolin]

Again, if it was tightly sealed, I wouldn't worry about it. One of the fuel manufactures last year said that he had used fuel that was 7 years old and it worked fine for him.   Good luck.

[Wayne Collier]

As stated by others, if well sealed all should be well.  If your really worried about it, run out about a pint and weigh it.  If it weighs a lot more than it should, it may be contaminated.  Keep in mind that a trace of water in glow fuel probably won't hurt much.  You could always mix a small batch of fuel and test it.

[Neville Legg]

You could put the methanol in the freezer, theoreticaly if there is any water in it, it should turn to ice! You can then drain off the methanol leaving the ice behind! Never tried it, but others tell me it works!! Not sure myself.

Cheers   Neville

[Alan Hahn]

Before freezing all your methanol, try a small experiment first.

Pour ~1/2 cup methanol in a quart size jar. Add a teaspoon of water. Now put this in the freezer. See if anything (hopefully water) actually freezes out.

I just mention this so that if it doesn't work, you save yourself some effort.

It might work, after all that's one way apple jack is made--but there is a lot of water already in hard cider and you certainly aren't making 200 proof by this freezing method. I am not sure you can get very small amounts out of alcohol (ethanol or methanol).

[Dick Fowler]

Try a hydrometer like this. Relatively cheap.

http://sciencekit.com/hydrometer/p/IG0023641/

Get the one with the .7 to 1.0 range

Pure methanol has a specific gravity of .792 @ 68 F. and .791 @ 77F.

I can't find my CRC tables but most good chemistry reference books will have a chart of specific gravity of various methanol/water mixtures.

Of course the issue is how much water is too much! 

Edit to add chart of specific gravity of various water/alcohol mixtures... use left side of chart.

Second Edit - Didn't someone publish an article in SN or someplace where they added enormous amounts of water to fuel and tested the run characteristics? If memory serves me ,  their conclusion was some water is good

[Neville Legg]

What's the idea behind water/methanol injection on fullsize aircraft engines? Am I right in thinking it was used at high altitude, to compensate for the lack of oxygen? Water being H2o! and mixes nicely with alcohol as my whiskey will testify!

Cheers   Neville

[James C. Johnson]

Try freezing whiskey !!!

Jim

[Dick Fowler]

Try freezing whiskey !!!

Jim

I keep my tequila in the freezer.... viscosity increases but no freezing of any portion, it remains a liquid.

[Peter Ferguson]

What's the idea behind water/methanol injection on fullsize aircraft engines? Am I right in thinking it was used at high altitude, to compensate for the lack of oxygen?

No, that would be incorrect. Water/methanol is used two ways 1) as a direct input into the front of the engine to increase mass flow and increase thrust at takeoff for low thrust engines (usually turbojets) and 2) as in injection into the compressor exit to lower air temps so you can push the throttle up without damaging the turbine. Both are used at takeoff and initial climb when high thrust levels are needed. Thrust levels are way down at altitude/cruise.

[George]

What's the idea behind water/methanol injection on fullsize aircraft engines? Am I right in thinking it was used at high altitude, to compensate for the lack of oxygen? Water being H2o! and mixes nicely with alcohol as my whiskey will testify!

Cheers   Neville

I believe that some high altitude bombing was done during WW2 with use of water injection. If I understand correctly, the water vapor would turn to steam and increase power. Perhaps alcohol was added to prevent the water from freezing.

George

[Neville Legg]

George,    I thought that was probably the case! Didn't the P47 have water/methanol injection as well?

Cheers    Neville

[Jim Kraft]

I used to have an Olds Jetfire, 1962 vintage, that had a turbo charger. It used an alcohol water injection system to keep it from detonating when the intake manifold pressure came up. Oldsmobile called it rocket fuel, and you could buy it at your friendly Olds dealer by the gallon. It was a very light weight car with an aluminum V-8 at 215 cubes. Put out 215 HP with the turbo. Pretty hot for a '62 production car.

[Lee Thiel]

why would water finding paste not work?  Its easy enough to use.
Lee TGD

[Alan Hahn]

Try freezing whiskey !!!

Jim

Well that's what I was thinking of. I think at some % water it will freeze water out, but that is probably in the 90% or greater water range.

Of course  , who hasn't experienced the frozen beer--in the hurry to cool off beer from the grocery, you stick it in the freezer and then forget about it--or at least forget about the 5th and 6th one!. Net result is slush beer. Anyway that's the technique of making apple jack from hard cider. You get a net alcohol increase in the liquid left behind, but I'm guessing is that it is less than 50 proof or so--otherwise the whiskey at ~80 proof would freeze.

But how can you put whiskey in the freezer--that is almost bordering on the criminal!!!  

[Rob Killick]

What Jim Kraft said ...

The MW mix would quench any hot carbon particles in the cylinders of "recip" engines , prohibiting detonation .

[Will Hinton]

I actually used to use methanol as a "dry gas" additive when I was stationed in Quonset Point, RI because it was available free and plentiful.  It supposedly absorbed the H2O in my tank and avoided fuel line freeze up.  I'm told that the methanol absorbs water to a great degree, so how much would have to be in the stuff to be able to freeze out?
I know a (to remain un-named) fuel supplier who told me he uses water in his high power go-karts at Thompson Raceway in Connecticut to increase power - he didn't say what amount.
Shoot, if it was me, I'd simply run a tank full or two in the air and see what kind of run I got.
Will

[don Burke]

I think if your fuel was stored in metal cans you're probably OK, if plastic bottles, UH-UH. Water leaches into the fuel through the plastic as well as the volatile ingredients leach out.  Plastic is a lousy storage medium.

Water injection was used on takeoff only to increase the mass flow through the engine, as noted.  That's where all the takeoff black smoke came from.  Not used at altitude.  The water does not break down into H and O.  If it did it that easily all IC engines would run on water!

[Will Hinton]

I used to mix all the fuel for the local club back in the 60's and ended up with a plastic five gallon container of it left over when I quit modeling because of the time constraints of flying full scale stuff.  (And I'm sorry, but water injection WAS used at altitude in IC engines during world war two for reasons listed above by others.)   
At least six years after my exit from the hobby back then a friend came to me and asked if I had any of the old fuel left.  I gave him the plastic container of fuel with the advice to strain it to remove the shellac flakes that had formed and try it.  He and his buddies flew the whole five gallons out that summer with no ill effects.
I'm not sure just how accurate the knock on all plastic containers is, but that one experience would seem to indicate that some are fine.

[Jim Kraft]

Yep! I have used fuel stored in plastic jugs for several years and have never noticed any difference between it and new fuel as far as nitro content or water contamination. I do not think water or nitro will leach through plastic. At least through the plastic jugs I have used. Others mileage may vary as I have heard this before.

[Warren Leadbeatter]

What's the idea behind water/methanol injection on fullsize aircraft engines? Am I right in thinking it was used at high altitude, to compensate for the lack of oxygen? Water being H2o! and mixes nicely with alcohol as my whiskey will testify!

Cheers   Neville

The basic idea behind water injection is to increase power output. For a good explanation of how water injection works check this out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_injection_(engines)

Cheers

[Ron Varnas]

Hi all,

Some good suggestions here, I like Dick's hydrometer idea,
as for freezing the stuff in the freezer don't think I'd be too
popular in the house with that one

[Brian Hampton]

There's only one simple test to see if there's water in fuel that I know of. I carried out some experiments adding water to fuel some years ago and wrote up the results at http://www.holdfastmac.com.au/Waterfuel.html

Basically you put a sample of fuel in the freezer and if there's water then at a certain critical temperature all the oil will suddenly fall out of solution and settle at the bottom of the container. I found a big difference in the type of oil though. Castor stayed in solution at much lower temperatures than Mobil Jet Oil II (the only synthetic I've ever used). Nitro may possibly affect the critical temperature too but I've never used nitro so can't be certain. As a rough guide though if you cool the fuel below any temperature you're likely to fly at and it stays clear when shaken then it should be fine. If it goes murky then it's from tiny droplets of oil forced out of solution.

[Ron Varnas]

Hi Brian,

Interesting reply thankyou, but your method seems to be for fuel
already mixed, my question on the start of the thread was for straight
Methanol that I've had in storage for 6 or so years 

[Serge_Krauss]

Our Kart racing methanol used to absorb water over time. The simple test was to simply put some fuel on a piece of aluminum foil and let the methanol evaporate. Any drops remaining were good old H - two - O. This was an easy and often-used test with obvious results.

Edit: the droplets were usually whitish - a sure indication.

SK

[Bill Adair]

I'm currently running a gallon of Dukes fuel (Fox) that is at least ten years old, and probably closer to fifteen. It's a plastic jug that has been stored unopened, in unheated garages the entire time.  

There is no separation or flakes of any kind, and the Castor I added to bring it up to 28 percent lube is staying in perfect solution. My McCoy 35 started on the first flip last time it was flown, and runs just fine on this old fuel.

Also have a jug of Omega, and a jug of Byron fuel that is nearly as old as the Fox fuel. I will try to run those at some later date, but suspect they will work just as well.

Makes me wonder where all these stories about fuel going bad in plastic jugs are coming from?  

Perhaps fuel storage problems are more common in hotter climates?

Bill

[Serge_Krauss]

Bill-

I don't know about plastic, but our racing fuel from drums stored by racing shops was often contaminated - flakes and water.

At the field, I've noticed something else that is certainly worthy of one's attention: There is an evaporation of the methanol that leaves the mix higher in oil concentration, if not in water. When switching to a new batch, my needle valve settings do change.

Edit: I do keep it capped at the field, immediately after refueling.

SK

[Bill Adair]

Hi Serge,

No doubt about it, containers opened (even infrequently) allow hygroscopic chemicals like methanol, to absorb water from the atmosphere.

My old Fox fuel was stored unopened for all those years, and so far has shown no indications of water absorption that I can recognize.

Wouldn't surprise me if plastic jugs are actually superior to rigid metal containers, because they allow the container to easily expand and contract with temperature induced pressure changes, thus minimizing the tendency to suck air at one extreme, and leak methanol vapor at the other. 

Bill

[Dick Fowler]

Our Kart racing methanol used to absorb water over time. The simple test was to simply put some fuel on a piece of aluminum foil and let the methanol evaporate. Any drops remaining were good old H - two - O. This was an easy and often-used test with obvious results.

Edit: the droplets were usually whitish - a sure indication.

SK

I thought about that too but I could see a problem of condensation giving a false positive if done in a high humdity atmosphere.

I still like using a hydrometer... you get an approximation of how much water is present using the chart... empirically it's possible to determine how much is OK.

[Jim Thomerson]

Here is a chart of freezing temps for water/methanol mixtures.
http://www.alcohol-injection.com/forum/technical-questions/freezing-point-methanol-alcohol-mixed-water-487.html

I have a half gallon or so of RED MAX in a plastic jug,@ 30 years old.  I run a little of it through something on the bench from time to time.  Seems OK.  When I run a plastic jug down to about a quart left, I open a new jug.  After it is down enough, I pour the previous quart in.  Never had a problem.   

[George]

Ron,
Is it alcohol or fuel. Years ago George Aldrich mentioned some kind of stone (I think) he used to remove water from alcohol used in the fuel he mixed. For the life of me, I can't remember what it was. He did not use it for already mixed fuel because oil would render the stones ineffective.

Joe Wagner did a test on adding water to glow fuel a couple of years ago, published in MAN or MA. Water didn't seem to affect running until it got up to a pretty high percentage.

I have seen moisture in fuel affected by some plugs. Symptom was RPM drop when booster removed. I THINK I had to turn the needle in a bit and it ran hotter because of less lube. It's been awhile so I may remember some of this incorrectly.

George

Edit: Oops, missed your reply above about it being just alcohol.

[Charlie Pate]

Try freezing whiskey !!!

Jim

Ah ha! Thats why my Jack Daniels popcicles failed!   

[George]

Ah ha! Thats why my Jack Daniels popcicles failed!   

Ice cubes are much easier...but for Jack, nothing else needed.   

George

[phil c]

for questions like this, search the web:
Water injection: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_injection_(engines)  Water injection reduces engine knock and allows higher compression and advanced ignition timing.   Nobody really knows exactly how it works in the engine cylinder except that it reduces peak combustion temperatures.

Water in methanol:
www.methanex.com/products/documents/TISH_english.pdf -   water is almost totally miscible with methanol.  In other words you can mix water and methanol in almost any ratio and get a clear solution.  Water has almost no effect on the flashpoint of the methanol until you get to 20% water.  But many folks have found that a few % of water affects glow engines significantly.

Removing water:
use a dessicant  http://www.deltaadsorbents.com/  You can get dessicant filters at almost any automotive paint supplier.  One will pick up a couple of grams of water from fuel, if you have a problem gallon and don't want to throw it away or mix it off in small amounts.

Measuring water in methanol:  use infrared spectrophotometry.  Probably will cost you $60-100 per test.

[Ed Prohaska]

You could just mix up a gallon of fuel, run an engine on it and see what happens.

If a previously good running engine coughs, sputters and you can't needle it, that might indicate a problem with the methanol.

It's best to have a "control jug" of fresh commercial fuel on hand. Run the engine on that first to establish a benchmark, then switch to your home brew.

Regards, EWP

[Arlan McKee]

There is another property of a water / methanol mix that hasn't been mentioned. I work for an agricultural and environmental laboratory. We run some herbicide and pesticide analysis by High Pressure Liquid Chromatography or HPLC. Water and methanol are commonly used as mobile phases to carry the samples through the separation column and on to the detector. The inside diameter of the lines it's pumping through is about .017. To pump pure methanol through the system at a rate of one ml per minute would require about 90 bar, or 1305 psi.  Pure water would require about 110 bar or 1595 psi. When the two are mixed the pressure required jumps dramatically. We start at 80% water and 20% methanol and ramp up to 20% water and 80% methanol over about 45 minutes. The highest pressure winds up around 300 bar or 4350 psi.   The flow rate remained unchanged at 1ml per minute.

[Howard Rush]

That is really interesting.  So the viscosity of the mixture must be way higher than either by itself. 

I keep intending to measure fuel viscosity vs. temperature.  Thomas Case suspects that it varies enough to justify keeping fuel in a thermostatically controlled chamber.

[Dick Fowler]

Hey... a new venue!  Dome Flying

[Jim Kraft]

Another interesting thing about methanol water mix is that the water molecules go between the alcohol molecules and if you mix a gallon of water with a gallon of alcohol you will wind up with quite a bit less than 2 gallons.

[Jim Kraft]

Another thought; That is why it probably takes more pressure to pump than either one alone as the mixture is much denser than either one by itself.

[Alan Hahn]

That is really interesting.  So the viscosity of the mixture must be way higher than either by itself. 

I keep intending to measure fuel viscosity vs. temperature.  Thomas Case suspects that it varies enough to justify keeping fuel in a thermostatically controlled chamber.

I think I will do my own testing this evening, but substitute ethanol for the methanol. I'll update the results, if I can remember afterwards 

[frank williams]

This seems like the crystals in electronic packaging.
http://www.2spi.com/catalog/spec_prep/molecular-sieve-type-3A.shtml

[Howard Rush]

For $4/ml of water, I think I'll try to find some dry methanol instead.  Would silica gel work?

[Leo Mehl]

For $4/ml of water, I think I'll try to find some dry methanol instead.  Would silica gel work?

Your engine runs always sound like you have added the right amount of water

[Arlan McKee]

That is really interesting.  So the viscosity of the mixture must be way higher than either by itself. 

I keep intending to measure fuel viscosity vs. temperature.  Thomas Case suspects that it varies enough to justify keeping fuel in a thermostatically controlled chamber.

I think surface tension is more likely to be the cause of a change in flow characteristics than viscosity. I do know that the last thing that I would do to my fuel would be to try and lower the temperature. Maintaining a steady temperature somewhere around the ambient outside temperature would be best. For the HPLC work that I mentioned in my last post, we heat the solution to 55 c to lower the pressure to acceptable levels. Acetonitrile and water, which is another common mobile phase in HPLC work, does not cause the same pressure problems.

[Pinecone]

Water injection is different in turbojet and piston engines.

In turbojets, it is used during takeoff to increae mass flow (thrust) for heavily loaded aircraft.  KC-135s were famous for the somky "water" takeoff.  The methanol ws to keep the water from freezing.  They used methanol rather than ethanol to keep peopel from drinking it.

In piston aircraft (and cars) it reduces detonation allowing you to run higher compression ratio, or more commonly, higher boost pressures.  Thus making more power. In aircrat, it was used at altitude to increase power for more speed or higher altitude capability.

[Louis Rankin]

Here is a tried and true method to check for water in your fuel.  Soak a dollar bill in the fuel your are testing.  Light the dollar on fire.  If there is water in the fuel the alcohol will burn away and leave a water soaked bill.  If there is no water in the fuel the dollar will be consumed in the fire.

[Howard Rush]

I bought some fuel fixin's and measured the density using a volumetric flask and an accurate balance. The methanol, bought from a local sprint car racer, came out to 98-99%, using the nice graph above.  Now I wonder what the usual amount of water is in the stuff I've been buying.  I'll use the wetter stuff for practice and report the outcome.

I got some nitro from Mark Smith (Excalibur), kindly toted back from VSC by Pete Peterson.  It is 100% nitro. 

[Howard Rush]

Louis's method is an interesting twist on "you get what you pay for."

[Dick Fowler]

Louis's method is an interesting twist on "you get what you pay for."

Yes, but it's alot cheaper per test than Phil's method!

[Howard Rush]

Thinking more about Louis's method, as a scientist I would caution you to use a dollar bill rather than a suspected witch, which would be too many variables.