The Effects of Ethanol and Methanol Fuels on Engine Wear: A Study

When it comes to alternative fuels, ethanol and methanol are two popular options that have gained attention in recent years. But do they pose a risk to engine wear? In a study conducted by researchers, the effects of ethanol and methanol fuels on engine wear were investigated.

The study involved testing different types of fuel blends, including pure ethanol, e10 (a blend of 90% gasoline and 10% ethanol), and unleaded gasoline. The researchers also looked at sludge and varnish buildup, as well as intake valve deposits, to determine the extent of engine wear caused by each type of fuel.

The study found that while there was a significant amount of metal wear metals in the oil when paired with methanol, the results were quite different for ethanol fuels. In fact, the researchers saw a little bit less wear on metals when using pure ethanol and e10 fuels compared to unleaded gasoline. However, all of the fuel blends did relatively well, indicating that ethanol can be a viable alternative to traditional gasoline.

On the other hand, methanol fuel was not as successful in this regard. The study found that methanol caused quite a bit of wear on metals in the remaining oil, which is not ideal for engine health. It's worth noting that methanol is still often used in racing applications, where engines don't have to last as long.

The researchers also looked at sludge and varnish buildup, another indicator of engine wear. In this case, pure alcohol fuels (either ethanol or methanol) caused a decrease in sludge and varnish compared to unleaded gasoline. This is an advantage for using ethanol and methanol fuels, as they can help reduce the formation of these deposits.

Another interesting finding was that the researchers saw more water content in the remaining oil after testing with e10 fuel compared to unleaded gasoline. However, this effect was not seen with pure ethanol or methanol fuels.

So what did we learn from the study? First and foremost, they found that there was no significant difference between ethanol and e10 fuels versus unleaded gasoline when it comes to engine wear. However, methanol fuel caused significantly more wear on metals compared to e10 or unleaded gasoline. This is likely due to the byproducts of combustion formed during methanol burning, which are corrosive and can cause damage to engine components.

The researchers discovered that formaldehyde and formic acid were two key culprits in this process. These compounds are formed when methanol undergoes combustion, and they can react with metal components to cause corrosion and wear. This explains why methanol fuel is not ideal for use in engines, as it can lead to premature wear on critical components.

In contrast, pure ethanol or e10 fuels did not show significant engine wear, likely due to the fact that these fuels are less corrosive than methanol. However, modern cars with fuel systems designed to handle ethanol and methanol blends should be safe to use without issue.

One final consideration is the potential for phase separation when using ethanol fuels. Ethanol can absorb water from the air, which can cause it to separate from the gasoline in the tank over time. This can lead to problems if the fuel system isn't designed to handle this separation. However, most modern cars are equipped with fuel systems that can accommodate e10 and other blends without issue.

In conclusion, while methanol fuels do pose a risk of engine wear, pure ethanol or e10 fuels are generally safe to use in modern engines. The study highlights the importance of understanding the effects of alternative fuels on engine health, particularly when it comes to corrosion and wear. By choosing the right fuel for your vehicle, you can help extend its lifespan and maintain optimal performance.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhello everyone and welcome in this video we're going to be answering the question is ethanol bad for your car's engine now chances are if you buy gasoline in the united states that gasoline that you're buying is e10 meaning it contains 10 ethanol there are of course e15 out there and some cars with flex fuel can run on e85 meaning up to 85 ethanol but most of what you'll buy out there at gas pumps is going to be e10 10 ethanol and so there are many reasons why you may want to use ethanol may not want to use ethanol there are many disadvantages and advantages to it we're not going to be getting into the whole story here we're just going to be focusing on one question and is ethanol at this 10 uh dilution here so 10 ethanol 90 unleaded gasoline is that okay to run in your engine will it cause any additional wear on your engine internals by using e10 rather than using pure 100 unleaded gasoline now fortunately there is a very cool study which explains this looking at all the engine internals and what wear characteristics alcohol fuels have on them so the us department of energy and the us army sponsored a study which was published in the society of automotive engineers the journal of society of automotive engineers so a great resource and it was published in 1981 so we've known about this uh whether or not it's good or bad for our engines for quite some time you know i'm always bringing you the latest and greatest news in the automotive world all the way back from 1981. now this is a very cool study and so what they did was they took a four-cylinder 2.3 liter engine and they ran it at steady state for 20 hours so it was at a pretty high load at a mid rpm region and they ran it there for 20 hours and then afterwards they looked at the wear on all kinds of different parts within the engine and they did this with five different fuels so they did it with pure methanol they did it with 10 methanol 10 unleaded gasoline they did it with pure ethanol then they did it with 10 ethanol 90 unleaded gasoline what we have right here what we buy uh you know at the pump and then they also tested 100 uh unleaded gasoline in comparison to those four other fuels and so then they looked at all the individual parts and said how much wear you know was on them they looked at varnish and so we're going to look at each individual part and discuss where they saw where and with which fuel and fuel blends they saw that wear first up they looked at the cylinder liners and so they looked at the top of the bore and then they looked midway down the bore to look for wear differences there and so what they noticed was that the top of the bore was worn quite a bit with methanol but everything else pretty much didn't have all that much wear so methanol did cause quite a bit of wear at the top of the bore but then everything else was pretty good that changed however midway down in which everything did really well methanol did not cause increased wear down at the middle and so here looking at ethanol blends versus pure unleaded gasoline there wasn't really a significant difference in wear next they looked at the piston ring gap so as the piston rings wear the gap would increase as the ring expands out and so they measured that piston ring gap on the top ring and as well as the second ring and what they noticed was that on the top ring with methanol once again this one had the most wear about seven times as much as all the other categories which didn't have uh you know differing wear so whether it was unleaded gas or ethanol no additional wear then looking at the second ring methanol didn't have quite as bad of wear when compared to the others so actually methanol and then the e10 blend had about the same wear on the second ring but across the board the second rings tended to have more wear overall but they were more consistent across the board with the different fuel types versus methanol which had significantly more wear on the top ring now they also measured the weight loss of the cam followers so they measured the weight of these before and after and then measured how much material came off and what they found was that once again methanol had the most wear so ethanol fuels also had more wear than the pure gasoline but the methanol version had about 15 times the wear of that of the ethanol blends so significantly more for the methanol fuel not too bad for the ethanol or the unleaded gas options they of course also looked at the wear on the cam lobes and so this trend once again continues most of the fuels no problem with wear on the cam lobes but the methanol pure methanol option did have more wear than all the other options they also looked at the valve guides so looking at the guide for the exhaust which keeps it in place and they measured where there and once again methanol had the worst wear for the intake valve however there wasn't a big difference in wear across the board with any of the five fuel blends now after performing the tests with the five different fuels they looked at the engine oil to look for metal content to see what metal wear had occurred and what metal had gotten into the engine oil and so they looked at chrome copper iron and lead and once again the methanol fuel caused the most amount of wear so they saw the highest concentrations of metal wear metals in the oil when paired with methanol they actually saw a little bit less wear metals in the ethanol fuels both pure ethanol and e10 versus the unleaded gasoline but all of those did relatively well and then the methanol fuel did not do so hot had quite a bit of wear metals in the remaining oil now they also looked at sludge and varnish as well as intake valve deposits and so this is on a scale out of 10 10 being the cleanest and so this actually demonstrates there's an advantage to these alcohol fuels which the pure alcohol fuels ethanol and methanol have much cleaner uh pistons less varnish less sludge than the unleaded gasoline and you don't see the advantage of adding alcohols to the unleaded gasoline in the sludge and varnish tests you don't see it from the blends you really only see the advantage of cleanliness in the pure ethanol or pure methanol scenarios so what did we learn from the study well the study has three main conclusions which i found interesting first of all they did not find a significant difference between ethanol and ethanol fuel blends versus gasoline when it comes to engine wear they did with methanol however with e10 versus regular gasoline pure gasoline you're not going to notice a difference in engine wear the second conclusion they also saw that pure alcohol fuels whether 100 ethanol or a hundred percent methanol caused a decrease in engine deposits versus unleaded gasoline and finally one other interesting conclusion that they saw was that the alcohol fuels tended to have more water content in the remaining oil after the engine tests and so while they didn't see more engine wear with the ethanol blends they did see slightly more water content in the oil after was analyzed after the test so the main thing we learned here was that e10 ethanol fuels used in your gasoline engine aren't going to cause additional engine wear we did learn that methanol which is still often used in racing can cause significantly more wear and in racing that's not necessarily as big of an issue because the engines don't have to last quite as long but why did we see that with the methanol what makes methanol bad as a fuel for engine wear and so what they discovered was that the methanol wasn't actually diluting the engine oil it wasn't causing the engine oil to be less protective of the engine instead it was actually the byproducts of combustion that were causing that wear and so they noticed in the blow-by they saw formaldehyde as well as formic acid and both of these were causing corrosion and eating away at the material at that top of the piston so it was eating away at the top of the cylinder liner and it was also eating away at the piston rings and that makes sense because that's where those byproducts are going to form so when combustion occurs and methanol forms those byproducts they're right there it's at the top of the cylinder and it's at the top of the piston where it would then be wearing away at those materials so just in summary here for modern engines using e10 is no big deal it doesn't cause additional engine wear that said for older cars fuel systems may have not been designed with ethanol in mind and so you know ethanol is corrosive so if the fuel system wasn't designed for it your car's 20 years old well then it actually could cause damage to your fuel system the lines things like that that aren't designed to handle that ethanol and its corrosive nature but modern cars you know 2012 newer cars things like that uh you're not going to have to worry about the fuel system they have been designed with e10 uh in mind and so it's no big deal overall you know not a huge concern to use e10 with your modern car you don't have to go out of your way to find uh you know a pump that serves purely 100 gasoline unleaded gasoline now that's not to say that there aren't other disadvantages of having ethanol in there you know what can cause phase separation if it sits for a lot of time the ethanol actually likes to absorb water from the air and so you can have this phase separation that occurs if your car's just sitting there forever not a good thing to have of course separating out the gas and then the ethanol in the water also ethanol has less energy content in it so from a fuel economy standpoint there are reasons why it isn't beneficial harder to get good gas mileage using pure ethanol than using pure gasoline so of course a blend with ethanol in it you're going to get slightly worse fuel economy but overall you know the focus of this video was does ethanol cause engine wear uh and the results of this study show that it's not a big deal to use ethanol in your engine as far as the engine internals so thank you all for watching and if you have any questions or comments of course feel free to leave those belowhello everyone and welcome in this video we're going to be answering the question is ethanol bad for your car's engine now chances are if you buy gasoline in the united states that gasoline that you're buying is e10 meaning it contains 10 ethanol there are of course e15 out there and some cars with flex fuel can run on e85 meaning up to 85 ethanol but most of what you'll buy out there at gas pumps is going to be e10 10 ethanol and so there are many reasons why you may want to use ethanol may not want to use ethanol there are many disadvantages and advantages to it we're not going to be getting into the whole story here we're just going to be focusing on one question and is ethanol at this 10 uh dilution here so 10 ethanol 90 unleaded gasoline is that okay to run in your engine will it cause any additional wear on your engine internals by using e10 rather than using pure 100 unleaded gasoline now fortunately there is a very cool study which explains this looking at all the engine internals and what wear characteristics alcohol fuels have on them so the us department of energy and the us army sponsored a study which was published in the society of automotive engineers the journal of society of automotive engineers so a great resource and it was published in 1981 so we've known about this uh whether or not it's good or bad for our engines for quite some time you know i'm always bringing you the latest and greatest news in the automotive world all the way back from 1981. now this is a very cool study and so what they did was they took a four-cylinder 2.3 liter engine and they ran it at steady state for 20 hours so it was at a pretty high load at a mid rpm region and they ran it there for 20 hours and then afterwards they looked at the wear on all kinds of different parts within the engine and they did this with five different fuels so they did it with pure methanol they did it with 10 methanol 10 unleaded gasoline they did it with pure ethanol then they did it with 10 ethanol 90 unleaded gasoline what we have right here what we buy uh you know at the pump and then they also tested 100 uh unleaded gasoline in comparison to those four other fuels and so then they looked at all the individual parts and said how much wear you know was on them they looked at varnish and so we're going to look at each individual part and discuss where they saw where and with which fuel and fuel blends they saw that wear first up they looked at the cylinder liners and so they looked at the top of the bore and then they looked midway down the bore to look for wear differences there and so what they noticed was that the top of the bore was worn quite a bit with methanol but everything else pretty much didn't have all that much wear so methanol did cause quite a bit of wear at the top of the bore but then everything else was pretty good that changed however midway down in which everything did really well methanol did not cause increased wear down at the middle and so here looking at ethanol blends versus pure unleaded gasoline there wasn't really a significant difference in wear next they looked at the piston ring gap so as the piston rings wear the gap would increase as the ring expands out and so they measured that piston ring gap on the top ring and as well as the second ring and what they noticed was that on the top ring with methanol once again this one had the most wear about seven times as much as all the other categories which didn't have uh you know differing wear so whether it was unleaded gas or ethanol no additional wear then looking at the second ring methanol didn't have quite as bad of wear when compared to the others so actually methanol and then the e10 blend had about the same wear on the second ring but across the board the second rings tended to have more wear overall but they were more consistent across the board with the different fuel types versus methanol which had significantly more wear on the top ring now they also measured the weight loss of the cam followers so they measured the weight of these before and after and then measured how much material came off and what they found was that once again methanol had the most wear so ethanol fuels also had more wear than the pure gasoline but the methanol version had about 15 times the wear of that of the ethanol blends so significantly more for the methanol fuel not too bad for the ethanol or the unleaded gas options they of course also looked at the wear on the cam lobes and so this trend once again continues most of the fuels no problem with wear on the cam lobes but the methanol pure methanol option did have more wear than all the other options they also looked at the valve guides so looking at the guide for the exhaust which keeps it in place and they measured where there and once again methanol had the worst wear for the intake valve however there wasn't a big difference in wear across the board with any of the five fuel blends now after performing the tests with the five different fuels they looked at the engine oil to look for metal content to see what metal wear had occurred and what metal had gotten into the engine oil and so they looked at chrome copper iron and lead and once again the methanol fuel caused the most amount of wear so they saw the highest concentrations of metal wear metals in the oil when paired with methanol they actually saw a little bit less wear metals in the ethanol fuels both pure ethanol and e10 versus the unleaded gasoline but all of those did relatively well and then the methanol fuel did not do so hot had quite a bit of wear metals in the remaining oil now they also looked at sludge and varnish as well as intake valve deposits and so this is on a scale out of 10 10 being the cleanest and so this actually demonstrates there's an advantage to these alcohol fuels which the pure alcohol fuels ethanol and methanol have much cleaner uh pistons less varnish less sludge than the unleaded gasoline and you don't see the advantage of adding alcohols to the unleaded gasoline in the sludge and varnish tests you don't see it from the blends you really only see the advantage of cleanliness in the pure ethanol or pure methanol scenarios so what did we learn from the study well the study has three main conclusions which i found interesting first of all they did not find a significant difference between ethanol and ethanol fuel blends versus gasoline when it comes to engine wear they did with methanol however with e10 versus regular gasoline pure gasoline you're not going to notice a difference in engine wear the second conclusion they also saw that pure alcohol fuels whether 100 ethanol or a hundred percent methanol caused a decrease in engine deposits versus unleaded gasoline and finally one other interesting conclusion that they saw was that the alcohol fuels tended to have more water content in the remaining oil after the engine tests and so while they didn't see more engine wear with the ethanol blends they did see slightly more water content in the oil after was analyzed after the test so the main thing we learned here was that e10 ethanol fuels used in your gasoline engine aren't going to cause additional engine wear we did learn that methanol which is still often used in racing can cause significantly more wear and in racing that's not necessarily as big of an issue because the engines don't have to last quite as long but why did we see that with the methanol what makes methanol bad as a fuel for engine wear and so what they discovered was that the methanol wasn't actually diluting the engine oil it wasn't causing the engine oil to be less protective of the engine instead it was actually the byproducts of combustion that were causing that wear and so they noticed in the blow-by they saw formaldehyde as well as formic acid and both of these were causing corrosion and eating away at the material at that top of the piston so it was eating away at the top of the cylinder liner and it was also eating away at the piston rings and that makes sense because that's where those byproducts are going to form so when combustion occurs and methanol forms those byproducts they're right there it's at the top of the cylinder and it's at the top of the piston where it would then be wearing away at those materials so just in summary here for modern engines using e10 is no big deal it doesn't cause additional engine wear that said for older cars fuel systems may have not been designed with ethanol in mind and so you know ethanol is corrosive so if the fuel system wasn't designed for it your car's 20 years old well then it actually could cause damage to your fuel system the lines things like that that aren't designed to handle that ethanol and its corrosive nature but modern cars you know 2012 newer cars things like that uh you're not going to have to worry about the fuel system they have been designed with e10 uh in mind and so it's no big deal overall you know not a huge concern to use e10 with your modern car you don't have to go out of your way to find uh you know a pump that serves purely 100 gasoline unleaded gasoline now that's not to say that there aren't other disadvantages of having ethanol in there you know what can cause phase separation if it sits for a lot of time the ethanol actually likes to absorb water from the air and so you can have this phase separation that occurs if your car's just sitting there forever not a good thing to have of course separating out the gas and then the ethanol in the water also ethanol has less energy content in it so from a fuel economy standpoint there are reasons why it isn't beneficial harder to get good gas mileage using pure ethanol than using pure gasoline so of course a blend with ethanol in it you're going to get slightly worse fuel economy but overall you know the focus of this video was does ethanol cause engine wear uh and the results of this study show that it's not a big deal to use ethanol in your engine as far as the engine internals so thank you all for watching and if you have any questions or comments of course feel free to leave those below\n"