The purpose of this investigation is to understand and outline what fuel out of three chosen fuels would be most suitable and efficient for use on a camping trip or a variety of outdoor activities. The three chosen alcohol fuels for the purposes of this experiment are butanol, propanol and ethanol.
One of the fuels that the group is testing is an alcohol known as butanol (also butyl alcohol) which is commonly known as a four carbon alcohol with a formula of C4H9OH. (Atsumi et al., 2008) There are only four possible isomeric structures for butanol, usually in a form a straight chain primary alcohol to a branched chain tertiary alcohol (Atsumi et al., 2008). Butanol isomers are all different structures and due to their different structures there
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Propanol’s melting point is -126°C and boiling point is 97°C. The safety procedure when dealing with propanol is very low in hazardous rating only one lethal incident was ever recorded but always keeping in mind it is a fuel and is considered to be very flammable. Propanol has high octane numbers making it suitable for engine fuel usage however the production of propanol is too expensive to be a common engine fuel (Biofuel.org.uk). Molecular structure of propanol
The final fuel that will be tested on is a fuel called ethanol also commonly called ethyl-alcohol or simply just alcohol. It is usually found in alcoholic beverages and is produced by the fermentation of sugars by yeast according to (National Institute of Health, 2000). Ethanol has a number of practical uses it is most commonly used as an antiseptic, a solvent and a fuel. Ethanol has 2 carbon bonds with a chemical formula of CH3-CH2-OH . Ethanol’s boiling point is 97°C and the freezing point -114.1°C. The hazards of ethanol is its flammability and also consuming to much of the substance leading to alcohol