Energy Content of Alcohol Fuels and Blends with Gasoline

Abstract

In this research we report the comparative energy content or heat value of alcohol fuels as well as blends with gasoline obtained from both steel and bomb calorimeters. The energy content of the alcohol obtained from the two calorimeters differ widely, with the values of the energies obtained from the steel calorimeter far less than the values obtained from the bomb calorimeter. We observed that the energy content of the alcohol fuels increased from methanol through to pentanol. Meanwhile, the energy of the blend increases with the increase in carbon content of the alcohol, except for blends beyond E15. Additionally, the blend of the fuels gave higher energy values than the pure alcohols using any of the methods.