Posted by Sherman in Idaho [108.162.246.24] on Wednesday, September 21, 2016 at 17:08:47 :
In Reply to: Ethanol Fuel Color posted by WarEagle [108.162.236.97] on Wednesday, September 21, 2016 at 15:07:30 :
Both are clear these days. In the old days, leaded gas was dyed to indicate that it was poisonous. There was also "blue Conoco" that was dyed just as a sales gimmick. Nowadays diesel is dyed to indicate highway tax wasn't paid on it. But both regular gas and ethanol gas are water-clear these days, and at only 10% ethanol, they smell the same.
One way to tell them apart would be to shake up a known amount of fuel with plenty of water, let it stand until it separated into two layers, pour off the top layer carefully, and measure it compared to what you started with. Most of the ethanol will dissolve in the water and stay in the bottom layer. If the volume was the same before and after shaking with water, you probably have straight gasoline, but if the volume is notably less, you had a gas/ethanol mixture. Another way of doing it, without having to pour off the layers, is to mix, say equal volumes of "gas" and water, shake it up, and see what the combined volume is (a chemist's graduated cylinder would be ideal). If you put, say an ounce of "gas" and an ounce of water together and you get two ounces of liquid, you had straight gas, but if you mixed them up and got, say, 1.95 ounces of liquid, you started with gas that contained 10% ethanol (when ethanol dissolves in water it's like salt dissolving in water -- the water doesn't take up any more space with the salt or ethanol added than it did before.)
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