How out-of-touch can you get?

Gas is moving back up here (Midwest).

 

Add gas stablizers they will keep 6 months easy

Posted via the PriusChat mobile app.

 

So I looked up just how much moisture could come in with the air that replaces the gas removed, assuming no additional infiltration from leaks. It isn't much.

"For example, at 20 degrees C (68 degrees F), a cubic meter of air can hold a maximum of 18 grams of water."

Or, look at the third chart on this engineeringtoolbox.com page.

Using the former, ten gallons of fuel burned will be replaced by 10 gallons (= 1.34 cubic feet =0.0379 cubic meter) of air. At 68F in 100% relative humidity, this will bring in (0.0379 m^3) * ( 18 grams) = 0.68 gram of condensable water vapor. This is 0.024 ounce of water. This is tiny, very easily handled by the 10% ethanol in the bottom 1.4 gallons in the Prime tank.

Using the later and figuring for 90F, fully saturated air will hold 2.2 pounds of water per 1000 cubic feet. For 1.34 cubic feet (10 gallons), this means just 0.0029 pound, or 0.047 ounce, of water. Twice as much as at 68F, but still tiny.

To get a meaningful amount of water condensation in the tank, the air volume has to be replaced many times over by leaks or flow-through. Keeping it well sealed prevents this.

 

Maybe just run the car in hybrid mode a couple of days every week?

 

Yes, those figures I wrote are maximums, assuming the air comes in to the tank at 100% RH and leaves at 0%. Both cases would be unusual, though certain parts of the U.S. might come close to the first condition part of the year. So the typical moisture condensation load would be less. And in your area, far less, especially this time of year.

 

I've suggested almost exactly that......in a couple of different ways.......and it doesn't seem to sink in.

NOW.....we have taken a left turn with the thread so I quit.

 

The Toyota engineers already thought of everything, go figure.

 

While other pointed out that the manufacturer had already dealt with it, in multiple ways. And that also didn't seem to sink in.

 

Maybe......maybe not.

Do they use ethanol in Japan......or in the rest of the world ??

While ethanol is NOT the work of Satan, it does make a difference in fuel storage life.

 

(1) No (2) Yes.

 

Brazil flex-fuel means the car can use E25 to E100.

Toyota engineers know about fuel standards in other countries, otherwise they couldn't sell cars in the US because of the E10, and now E15, requirement.

Ethanol is bad for storage in lawnmowers because it has the potential to pull in too much humidity.
But, as already mentioned, this isn't a problem with the sealed fuel systems in cars.

 

Brazilian ethanol is usually hydrous and their fuel systems are designed for hydrous fuel.

It takes 1/3 the energy to make hydrous ethanol as compared to the us spec anhydrous and the storage life in a non sealed tank of hydrous ethanol is 5 years as it’s considered stable.

If the US would have simply adopted hydrous e100 (e96) instead of e85 our cars would already have the necessary components to deal with water and fuel aging would be irrelevant.

Truth
https://www.google.com/amp/s/fieldtopump.wordpress.com/2009/04/22/anhydrous-ethanol-vs-hydrous-ethanol-in-gasoline-blending/amp/

But it adds a small amount of complexity to the car for cold starts and hydrous isn’t permanently mixed with gasoline and can phase separate
(if you don’t use an emulsifier)
after about a week if you add gasoline to the same tank, which is irrelevant if the car is already rated for e100 anyway.

But the cost savings to fuel production would be immense.

 

Not to mention that once exposed to air, anhydrous ethanol quickly becomes hydrous.