In this study, pure commercial winter gasoline with a RON of 90 was selected as the baseline fuel. The ABE mixture was first prepared with the typical volumetric concentration of 30% acetone, 60% butanol and 10% ethanol. In addition, less than 1% water was added to the ABE mixture to simulate the raw ABE fermentation product [30].
Analytical grade acetone (99.5%), butanol (99.5%), ethanol (99.8%) and distilled water were mixed with pure gasoline
(G100) using a temperature-controlled magnetic stirrer to make ABE30, ABE85, ABE29.5W0.5, ABE29W1 (29 vol.% ABE, 1 vol.% water and 70 vol.% gasoline) as shown in Table 1. The stability of fuel blends was tested using a gravitational test. The prepared fuels were deposited in test tubes at 25 C and 1 atm for 14 days.
The fuels remained a clear single phase throughout the stability test.