The Influence of Glycerol Acetals on the Properties of Mixed Gasoline
2012
Raimonds Mūrnieks, Valdis Kampars, Aivars Blūms, Rūta Kampare, Kristaps Māliņš, Zane Ābelniece

The by-product of synthesis of the biodiesel is glycerol, for which production quantities have increased, while demand has remained constant. The traditional glycerol market is related to the soap, cosmetics, food and personal-care sectors, which cannot drain these huge amounts of glycerol produced by the biodiesel industry. As a result, new opportunities are sought for increasing amount of glycerol consumption. Glycerol is a good platform for other chemicals, especially oxygenated compounds. Hence, it reacted with ethanal (paraldehyde), propanal, isobutanal and pentanal to produce the corresponding acetals, respectively. These components were blended in 5 and 10 vol.% with gasoline containing 0, 5 and 10 vol.% bioethanol. The blends were subjected to analysis of vapour pressure, distillation curve and density. The results were compared with the values specified in the Latvian standard LVS EN 228. The acetals improved the shape of distillation curve for blends containing bioethanol, approaching those of pure gasoline. The addition of acetals resulted in a reduced saturated vapour pressure and an increased density for all blended gasoline samples. The density specification (0.775 g/cm3) of the Latvian standard LVS EN 228 was met when the quantity of additives did not exceed 5 vol.%, however samples with 10 vol.% of additive fell slightly outside the specification. These results have confirmed that glycerol acetals can be successfully blended with regular gasoline up to 5 vol.%, thereby maintaining conformance with the Latvian standard LVS EN 228 and even allowing improvement over some gasoline properties. As longer hydrocarbon chains tend to raise the boiling point, acetals are of interest as a gasoline additive because they contain substituted linear hydrocarbon chains, which have less than 4 carbon atoms.


Keywords
gasoline, acetals, bioethanol, glycerol

Mūrnieks, R., Kampars, V., Blūms, A., Kampare, R., Māliņš, K., Šustere, Z. The Influence of Glycerol Acetals on the Properties of Mixed Gasoline. Materials Sciences and Applied Chemistry. Vol.25, 2012, pp.91-94. ISSN 1407-7353. e-ISSN 2255-8713.

Publication language
Latvian (lv)
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