Ethanol as an Alternative Fuel for Automobiles Using the First Law of Thermodynamics To Calculate the 'Corn-Area-per-Car' Ratio

摘要

The notion of using ethanol as an alternative to gasoline in automobiles has received considerable attention in the past few years due primarily to carbon dioxide emission concerns. Indeed, a complete switch from all fossil fuels to ethanol should theoretically eliminate net carbon dioxide emission from automobiles. In North America, ethanol has been used as an additive to gasoline for decades mainly to increase the fuel’s resistance to premature combustion during the engine’s compression stroke. In South America, many cars are already running on E85, a by-volume mixture of 85% ethanol and 15% gasoline.