If, as you suspect, your fuel was more water than gas, it would take a
boatload of methanol to get it to become miscible (dissolved) and burn.
Note that most (all?) gasolines have a *small* percentage of water in
them. Without getting overly technical, because water has a very low
molecular weight, it has a very high molarity (55). What this means is
that when it's vaporized during the gasoline combustion in an internal
combustion engine, it boosts the internal compression by creating a very
large amount of gas relative to the small amount of water.
The problem is that gasoline and water are only very poorly miscible;
that is, they don't dissolve in each other very well. So you can only
get a small amount of water into gas. Of course, water is dirt cheap,
so your "marginal" (economy) gas companies push the envelope on how much
they can put in. If the weather gets cold, or if they overdo it just a
tad, you get water droplet separation, which can cause backfiring in an
engine, or fuel line freeze-up. In such cases, addition of a little
methanol will redissolve the water back into the gas. "Dry Gas" is just
about all methanol, and quite a ripoff considering how cheap methanol is
to buy on the chemical market. But that's another treatise....
Anyway, water in "white gas" (or whatever you care to call it) does
virtually no good whatsoever, since your stove is hardly an internal
combustion engine. If the fuel barely had any gas odor, it was likely
almost all water, with a small amount of gas from what had been left in
the tank when the guy filled it. This was certainly just a flat out
mistake by Philmont's fuel supplier, and (again) it would have taken a
boatload of methanol to make it burn. Regardless, however, incidents
like this are certainly rare at Philmont (as I noted, it was the first
time I had ever heard of it), and carrying a pint (or whatever) of
methanol as a "just in case" is way-overkill....
- Dr. Bob
Gary Gibbs wrote:
> John,
>
> I suspect your educated guess is right-on. The volatile smell of
> the fuel we got on the trail was weak at best, so water probably was the
> main substance and fuel the contaminant!
>
> What about the old car trick of dumping in a little methyl alcohol to
> soak up the water in a fuel tank? Or maybe carrying a small bottle
> of ethyl alcohol since it has more BTUs per pound than methyl. A
> multi-fuel stove does burn alcohol. Heavier than a filter, I know, but
> it could be offset by carrying less white gas. Once the water was
> pulled "into suspension" in the alcohol, it would pass on through the
> burner with minor effect. Has anyone tried this to see how much water
> can be nullified? If it works, a shot or two could be used
> preventatively every time a fuel bottle is filled. My grandfather used
> to swear that scotch was the best medicine he ever took.
>
> Gary
>
>
> >Gary, not tryint to be condescending, but just an educated by many
> years guess. I'd bet my
> >bottom dollar that the contaminant was fuel and the bulk of the liquid
> was water. Water is the
> >biggest problem in hydrocarbon fueled anything.
>
>
>
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Received on Sun Feb 29 22:16:32 2004
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