Acetone in Your Fuel

Acetone is a very interesting substance, and has yet to be proven as a carcinogen. It has also yet to be proven as a miracle fuel mileage extender! This, along with many other "add this or that to your gas" myths over the years is nothing new, just the naive people that buy into them, but new fools are in endless supply. Sixteen years ago I can remember people saying that adding mothballs to your fuel would increase performance. Maybe it would if you were plagued by moths taking up residence in your fuel system!

I use Acetone frequently for various purposes, one of which is cleaning up tools and my own hands. It relatively safely removes silicone sealants, glues, and non-water based paints from a surface. Unlike denatured alcohol (paint thinner), Acetone "removes" rather than "dilutes," and common paint thinner has been proven to be a carcinogen. I'd rather use Acetone.

Acetone dissolves anything vinyl on contact, so you want to take care what you splash it onto by accident. Acetone is also used in women's nail polish remover. Nail polish remover is a diluted mixture of acetone, gelatin and often perfumes. Women could save money and just buy industrial acetone at the hardware store. It will not burn the skin on contact and should just as safely remove nail polish, if not much more efficiently.

Observing Acetone in an open container, one quickly notices it boils at room temperature. Acetone is unstable at room temperature under atmospheric pressure. Consequently, your open container of Acetone will boil away by the end of the day if you don't forget to put the cap back on.

Your automobile fuel system is not a sealed system. The fuel tank ventilates, so that it does not build up pressure and explode. When you add acetone to your fuel, it will simply evaporate within a few hours. It does not chemically bond with the fuel and detergents, and it remains unstable.

• Tom and Ray of NPR's Car Talk say that claims of acetone increasing gas mileage is completely bogus:

 It's worse than useless -- it's also harmful. Acetone is the primary ingredient 
 in nail-polish remover. And while it will burn and is a high-octane material, 
 it's also a very powerful solvent. So while it's in your fuel system, it'll be 
 eagerly dissolving all of your rubber components ... like gaskets and O-rings.

I disagree with Tom and Ray on part of their claim. Acetone should not have any impact on rubber components. Acetone does dissolve vinyl and PVC plastic. Acetone is harmless to many other materials though. It should have no impact on rubber unless the synthetic rubber composition contains PVC plastic. To my knowledge automotive rubber fuel lines do not. Petroleum fuel will eat through many plastics and silicon sealants, so the fuel lines have to be manufactured to withstand the fuel, and therefore will also withstand acetone.

• The television program Myth Busters disproved the Acetone added to your fuel increases mileage urban myth recently.

Although the Myth Busters crew did not experiment with the so-called "correct" mixture, they came to the correct conclusion. Although very combustible, Acetone will not aid refined petroleum in any way resulting in increased fuel efficiency. To utilize acetone as a fuel, a sealed fuel system would be required with pressure control and a metered injection system. When you add it to your conventional auto fuel take, it simply evaporates, because it is unstable in our atmosphere.

If you do not believe me about acetone being unstable, you may perform the following experiments on your own.

1. Pour 20 ml of acetone into an open glass flask of proportional width and height. Measure the amount of time before the Acetone is gone.

You will note that the acetone appears to mildly boil in the container and will be gone in a few minutes.

2. Mix 10 ml of acetone with 40 ml of petroleum gasoline in an open flask with measuring units on the side. Observe that you begin with 50 ml of liquid. Leave the open flask for one hour and return. You will observe that you have only 40 ml of liquid.

You can go on, believing what you read on fringe web sites, or you can test this for yourself. I must say I am amused by some of the sources of the acetone fuel mileage myth, many on forums from SUV owners. Listen, idiots, I can help you save a lot of petrol, sell the SUV and get a fuel-efficient car or motorbike. After all, if you are wrong about acetone, then you are probably also wrong about a lot of other things, including your justification for owning an SUV.