Remove Ethanol From Petrol

Many people are aware of the problems petrol with ethanol poses and these range from the seperation of the ethanol from the petrol and the ethanol being respopnsible for attacking everything from non ferrous metals to rubber seals and pipes and the fact it is hygroscopic which means it absorbs water and all these things contribute to the fact you cannot store petrol for mre than about a month before it is useless.

Disclaimer

Neither I or the site can condone this and anything done is done at your own risk.

First the knowledge, petrol has been around for over a century and under the old system it was graded as 5 star, 4 star, 3 star, and 2 star and this reflected its minimum octane rating and this was incorporated into EU legislation under the number BS 590 in recent years and this still recognised the old UK star rating and all was fine with this fuel as it could potentially be stored for months in sealed containers and if treated with an appropriate additive it could be fine for up to a year. More recently the climate activists and Governments used this to raise the price of petrol and they introduced ethanol into fuel at a quantity of 5% and generally this didn't cause any issues as the quantity of ethanol was low enough for it not to seperate out easily and generally they used generally the same petrol and simply added the ethanol to it and claimed it was more environmentally friendly and fudged (lied) the figures to show an on paper improvement and we as engineers disproved their claims in actual tests and not just on paper, so why was E5 a better fuel?

Ethanol improves the octane rating of any petrol it is added to and adding 5% ethanol to ordinary unleaded petrol made it into super unleaded and they charged top prices for it and in this quantity it was generally fine right up to the point they realised you could use a lower grade of petrol and add 10% ethanol to it and this raised the octane rating back to that of ordinary unleaded petrol and the catch was that ethanol was produced from fermenting food crops to produce this ethanol and the process if similar to that of producing moonshine.

Unleaded petrol at such concentrations of ethanol doesn't do any petrol powered equipment any good and even the super unleaded absorbs water and seperates the ethanol from the petrol meaning you cannot store for long periods but it but it is better than E10 and the best fuel to separate is the oldr E5 super unleaded fuel as this is ordinary petrol with ethanol added and the E10 is lower grade petrol with ethanol added so E5 is the normal petrol and if you remopve the ethanol you can store it for much longer; up to around a year with an additive and in a sealed container. This would be useful to know if you need to store petrol for a generator for example as it can be bought in the Autumn and made to last until the spring if necessary.

I suggest a 3 litre container made of clear glass with a sealed lid which goes onto it.

Place 2.5 litres of your super unleaded E5 petrol into your container and add about 1/2 litre of plain tap water, put the lid on and shake vigourously as if you are trying to mix them and actually this is what you are doing as the ehhanol is hygroscopic and quickly absorbs the water and these turn into clear lumps or balls and sit on top of the water and the petrol floats on top of them.
Once you have vigourously shaken it and mixed it you need to stand it for about 12 hours or overnight for the magic to happen and when you return you can see the water on the bottom, your clear lumpy balls on top of the water and your now ethanol free petrol floating on the balls.

Take your container and remove the lid and syphon your now pure petrol off the top of the balls of ethanol and the water and put into a petrol container, put your prefered additive to it and seal your petrol can and you have petrol you can keep for about a year and your generator, chainsaw, petrol strimmer or blower an every other petrol engined equipment will thank you for it.

if you do this with E10 petrol remember this is often inferior petrol to begin with.