Alcohol gasoline blend volatility for cold and moderate climates

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Alcohol gasoline blend volatility for cold and moderate climates

Lawson, A.

The Canadian Oxygenated Fuels Association (COFA) was formed to promote the use of alcohols including alcohols blended with gasoline in Canada. COFA members include alcohol manufacturers, petroleum marketers, research and technical organizations. There have been a number of fleet trials and small implementation programs operated in Canada in the past several years. A number of these programs identified some level of dissatisfaction with the cold starting and cold driveability performance of alcohol-gasoline blends when the blends were formulated to existing gasoline specifications. There are many reports in the literature describing the volatility of alcohol-gasoline blends at high temperatures. However, there is very little detail on the volatility characteristics of such blends at low temperatures. Possible reasons are discussed for the poorer performance of alcohol-gasoline blends when formulated to existing gasoline specifications. A new specification for oxygenated gasolines will be proposed which addresses these problems, to improve lower temperature driveability, yet result in low evaporative emissions during winter operations.