Ethanol Medic?

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Has anybody tried Ethanol Medic fuel stabilizer? I saw a demonstration at the boat show where they put various stabilizers in small bottles along with about 50% water. The StaBil marine (blue stuff) and Startron just separated out completely, and you could see the stabilizer just floating on top of the water. The Ethanol Medic appeared to blend completely with the water and stayed that way, creating one mixed liquid. I'm not sure that is really a good thing or not, but it does appear that it would combat phase separation that occurs with ethanol gas. They couldn't point me to any product data sheets so I don't know what is in this stuff: Ethanol Medic
 
That stuff about phase separation sounds very similar to what Seafoam says about their product. Check out their website, you could probably try the same experiment with their product yourself, and its much easier to find.
 
As far as I know the only thing that is going to mix with water is an alcohol. Most likely the product is in large part isopropyl alcohol - just like the red bottles of HEET you can buy in the winter. (The yellow are methanol based IIRC).

So its likely nothing any more special about this product than the chemistry behind a $1.75 bottle of HEET.
 
Frankly, the booth at the show struck me as a classic snake oil display. They also had a magnetic gizmo that you put in the fuel line which cleans all the crud out of your diesel fuel. However, something was definitely happening in those bottles, assuming they actually contained water and Stabil, Startron, etc. One thing I was thinking is how you are very unlikely to have 50% water in your tank, and the situation when you have say 0.5% water may be very different. Somehow I doubt that mixing 50% water with your fuel, no matter how thoroughly dispersed it is, would not be a good thing for your engine. I've searched around the Web a bit and there is very little information on fuel stabilizers other than manufacturer's claims and the recommendations of Joe the backyard mechanic. Ethanol fuel definitely degrades fast, and it does attract water more, so I think the need for a good stabilizer is there. Just wondering which ones actually work!
 
Originally Posted By: AuthorEditor
Frankly, the booth at the show struck me as a classic snake oil display. They also had a magnetic gizmo that you put in the fuel line which cleans all the crud out of your diesel fuel. However, something was definitely happening in those bottles, assuming they actually contained water and Stabil, Startron, etc. One thing I was thinking is how you are very unlikely to have 50% water in your tank, and the situation when you have say 0.5% water may be very different. Somehow I doubt that mixing 50% water with your fuel, no matter how thoroughly dispersed it is, would not be a good thing for your engine. I've searched around the Web a bit and there is very little information on fuel stabilizers other than manufacturer's claims and the recommendations of Joe the backyard mechanic. Ethanol fuel definitely degrades fast, and it does attract water more, so I think the need for a good stabilizer is there. Just wondering which ones actually work!



I saw a fuel additive display at Home Depot near the weed eater and chainsaws. The name of the stuff had the ethanol word in it. It was "Ethanol something" or "something Ethanol." It might be the same thing you saw at the boat show.

First off the test was rigged, as you guessed. The bottle was 50/50 water and snake oil. If the bottle had one cup of water and one cup of magic stuff it would mean that if you poured the magic stuff in your gas tank you might be lucky to absorb 1 cup of water, not a half a tank of water. You will not have a tank 50% full of Ethanol Medic and 50% water. Most gasoline already has 10% alcohol, which makes it absorb water anyways.

(A chemist can correct me if I am wrong) There are many different kinds of alcohol. Methanol, Ethanol, Propanol, Butanol, Hexanol, etc (I can't remember all of them). Some are attracted to water, and some are attracted to oil/petroleum products, and some are in between. You need several different types of alcohol to remove the water from your gas. One type of alcohol needs to be attracted to the gas, another needs to be attracted to the water, and another type needs to attract the other two types of alcohol to each other. Just because 1 cup of Ethanol Medic will mix with 1 cup of water does not mean that putting the same amount of EM in your tank will remove 1 cup of water.

Snake oil.
 
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Study this site and make up your own mind:

http://www.fueltestkit.com/directory.html The links on the right that discuss H2O removal and fuel stabilizers/conditioners.

In a nutshell, they recommend consumers to use petroleum based fuel additives and only experienced professionals use alcohol (water absorbing) additives due to their potential to damage engines.

I'm not a chemist, but their idea of not adding more alcohol to ethanol gasoline makes sense to me.

This might be the MSDS for Ethanol Medic:

http://www.jbenterprisesoffl.com/ethanolgasolinemedic.htm

Main ingredients are ethelene glycol and EthylhexyInitrate (What's this?)
 
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