Quote:
Originally Posted by Allch Chcar
Let me start by stating that I am not a chemist. Water is less of a problem with higher % of Ethanol. There reason Ethanol is so corrosive is due to it's desire to bond with another substance and it will make strong preferential bonding with water. The Ethanol we use is dry or anhydrous which makes it more corrosive. Ethanol has a high % of oxygen content. Gasoline/Petroleum and Ethanol forms a weak chemical bond but when water exceeds a 30:70 ratio, Ethanol will phase separate. Thereby sinking to the bottom of the fuel tank. Ethanol test kits use a much larger ratio of water, ~50:50, to separate Ethanol from Gasoline. A little bit of water in Ethanol has been found to reduce corrosion by providing a stronger bond for Ethanol molecules, per a study in Japan. This was about 2% water and eliminated corrosion of aluminum. Ethanol in Brazil and Sweden has always had 5% water content in their Ethanol, making it 95% Ethanol by volume.
That doesn't mean I would recommend adding water, some people would/do. But I wouldn't worry about E70-E85 and water. If you somehow did get phase separation, we would be talking significant amounts of water contamination. More than Ethanol could absorb moisture from the ambient air.
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I'm getting the idea your education is a lot more advanced than just "chemistry"...