26 The Philippine Journal of Science 1922 
TABLE 9.—Comparison of the consumption of lubricating oil in airplane 
engines with gasoline and with alcohol fuel. 
Oil used with— 
Revolutions per minute. 
Alcohol 
Gasoline. wmixtute, 
ep Oh a eka ues CU ae Ko caw ONE Wo odek Sada cbaadicagasadtmacaul-sadspiencse 4.5 
Fe a ik a ead idan oo eee pda ddcaetn Temes Seite hermes dap eeeeTes 4.65 4.2 
I sce oe ae ge a aaah gata bia vedas cab ets pa ay pee ee 
These alcohol mixtures have been thoroughly tested, and they 
compare very favorably with gasoline.* The mileage obtained 
is equal or superior to that obtained with gasoline; there is no 
carbon deposit left in the cylinder; the acids formed are neutral- 
ized by the pyridine or ammonia present, hence there is no ° 
corrosion; there is less tendency toward knocking, resulting in 
a smoother-running engine; the heat of combustion is lower, 
hence the engine is less liable to overheat; in case of fire it can 
be extinguished with water; an engine can be started more 
easily from the cold than with gasoline; there is less fouling of 
the spark plugs and lower consumption of oil. 
Foster *° points out that the addition of substances that would 
neutralize the acids formed by the explosive combustion of the 
alcohol-ether fuel has incidentally often resulted in retarding 
the production of corrosive compounds within the fuel itself. 
He states in his patent: 
It is obvious that the production of a successful synthetic fuel for 
internal combustion engines involves not only the problem of protecting 
the engine from the products of combustion, but the far more involved 
problem of protecting the fuel itself from destructive action and the fuel 
storage and supply system from the deleterious effects resulting from such 
auto-destructive action of the fuel. ; 
The use of ammonia as a neutralizing agent in alcohol-ether 
mixtures is open to the great objection that ammonia is very 
volatile. To obtain some idea of the rate of evaporation of 
ammonia the following experiment was carried out: An al- 
cohol-ether-ammonia mixture of the same composition as Nata- 
lite was placed in open 60-cubic-centimeter beakers, 25 cubic 
centimeters in each beaker. The ammonia present was de- 
* Alcohol used alone is, of course, more efficient than are alcohol mixtures, 
when used in slow-speed engines with high compression. 
* Sugar News 2 (1921) 524. 
™ United States patent 1,384,946.. 
