Issue link: https://read.dmtmag.com/i/147181
[ The post-ethanol fuel future? ] nol as part of a joint program between the industry and the Department of Energy. Initial industry research in 2010 and 2011 showed promising results for a 20-percent isobutanol fuel blend in marine engines. That research caught the attention of the DOE, launching the joint project with the Argonne National Laboratory that started last year. Now, a year into the project, the results are even more encouraging, Wasil said. The on-water testing is evaluating a 16-percent isobutanol blend (B16) for not only its ability to power the engines, but also to see if it causes any long-term damage. "A large component of that is a durability study in which we took several outboard engines from different engine manufacturers," Wasil said. "We're looking not only for emissions, but wanted to see how the engines will perform over the entire useful life of the engine." The group tested two Tohatsu 10-hp engines, two Mercury 90-hp four-stroke engines and two Evinrude 200-hp engines. One in each pair was run on a 10-percent ethanol blend (E10) and one was run on B16 for 350 hours per engine. During that time, the engines continued to run without any problems. As that test- www.BoatingIndustry.com P18x20-BI13JUL-AlternateFuels.indd 19 On-water testing of isobutanol shows great promise for the fuel. ing wraps up, the next step is to do a complete teardown and inspection of the critical parts of the engine to look for any problems that weren't immediately apparent. Fuel is also being tested on inboard and sterndrive engines. Even if new engines can be built to work on E15, it's not unusual for boaters to be using outboards that are decades old. To address that issue, BRP Evinrude provided an unused 1999 150-hp Johnson that had been in storage in its emission area. "There are a lot of those older technology engines still out in the field today so we wanted to see how that engine would run on isobutanol," Wasil said. "Based on that study, we saw similar things" as the testing of the newer engines. So far, there are no red flags for the use of isobutanol as a fuel, and there are benefits over ethanol, Wasil said. Emissions are at least as good or improved over ethanol blends. Isobutanol is not hydroscopic like ethanol, so phase separation shouldn't be an issue. (When gasoline containing ethanol sits too long and comes in contact with water in liquid form or in the air, the ethanol will absorb water and separate into layers.) Isobutanol also has almost 90 percent of the energy content of gasoline, whereas ethanol has July 2013 | Boating Industry | 19 6/5/13 10:16 AM