Salt Lake Tribune | 1917-10-07 | Page 25 | Denatured Alcohol as a Motor Fuel

DENATURED ALCOHOL AS A JVhTTOR FUEL Government Interested in Manufacture of Fluid From Suitable Materials. BAN FOOD PRODUCTS Specially Designed Engines and Carburetors Necessary to Success. The possibilities offered by the uso of denatured alcohol as fuol for internal-combustion internal-combustion motors furnishes today one of the most interesting industrial problems prob-lems and opens a line of investigation in which governments and motor owners own-ers are equally interested, says a -writer in a recent issue of American Motorist. Tho most important result of investigations inves-tigations carried on liy tho United States geological survey is contained in the evidence that properly designed in-tema-l-eombustion motors using alcohol or gasoline will consume about an equal volume of fuel per unit of power. Tho averages of the minimunis of consumption consump-tion values give a liko figure of eight-teuths eight-teuths of a pint per hour per braka horsepower for gasoline as well as for alcohol. In this comparison it is of decided interest that the thermal value of alcohol is only about, one-half that of gasoline of present-day standards a, fact which explains the persistence of the experimenters better than anything else. The manufacture of industrial alcohol itself presents no difficulty. The obstacles ob-stacles in the way of a more generul adoption of alcohol as motor fuel lie in the difficulty to find a raw material that can be procured sufficiently cheap to render the making of denatured alcohol al-cohol for fuel uso profitable. , Look for Substitute. At the present time most of the materials mate-rials that have, furnished denatured- alcohol al-cohol heretofore, such as grains, potatoes, pota-toes, melons, beets, etc., find a ready sale in the food market at prices too high to permit their use as a basis for alcohol. The question, then, is to discover a substitute so cheap as to make alcohol cheap enough to compete with the fuels now existing. The department of agriculture has taken ta-ken a commendable interest in the question ques-tion by instructing the public in methods meth-ods or manufacturing alcohol out of corncobs, refuse from canning factories, cactus, sawdust, etc. When the government regulations are made so liberal that denatured alcohol can be manufactured and sold as are most other commodities, a great point will have been gained by those in favor fa-vor of this development.' From the foregoing it should not be assumed, however, that alcohol may be used advantageously in the automobile engine of present design. Alcohol requires re-quires a special carburetor for its vaporization, va-porization, and the fuel must be preheated. pre-heated. On the other hand, it is also ('rue that by utilizing alcohol vapor under un-der higher compressions than are customary custo-mary for gasoline engines, alcohol will give the same or greater efficiency than gasoline.