Hi, all.

In doing research into making water miscible with the constituent components of gasoline, I started experimenting with acetone / water mixtures. Acetone being a polar (ie: has molecular charge separation) aprotic (ie:cannot donate hydrogen during proton transfer) small-molecule solvent, it is fully miscible in hydrocarbons and in water. Thus, it allows water to form an emulsion with gasoline.

Well, I mixed up a batch of gasoline / acetone / water. Unfortunately (or fortunately, whichever way you look at it), the ethanol in the gasoline already had some water in it, so some of the water settled out in the bottom of the glass container... and I got to thinking about what would happen if we had gasoline and water / acetone (supersaturated with water so some settled out) in a container, then we electrolysed the water to put the separated hydrogen and oxygen into the fuel.

That led me to research the electrical conductivity of acetone... it's not very electrically conductive... pKa of ~20.

One of the interesting factoids I came across in researching acetone is that adding it to water causes markedly lower high-frequency conductivity (even when using sodium hydroxide as an electrolyte) to an extent that isn't explained by the low molar conductivity of acetone or by change in viscosity.

So perhaps one way of limiting current while using high-voltage high-frequency electrolysis would be to add acetone to the water.

a brilliant idea?   umm

Acetone from external sources can enter the body four different ways:

poison..

    breathing: inhaling acetone from products such as nail polish or paint thinner
    eye contact: acetone splashes into the eye
    touching: spilling acetone on your skin
    drinking


not!  very interesting theory perhaps you can get back to us when u get your head out of the clouds.


plus it may get hot and spontaneously combust.
normal people would have looked at acetone as a poison to there health and the environment, but not you clyde? you can do better then that.. back to the drawing board...

Acetone has an auto-ignition temperature of 869 F. Just how hot are you running your electrolyzer? LOL

According to CDC.gov, "No indications of toxicity were reported following exposures to 2,100 ppm for 8 hours/day.", therefore it has an IDLH of 2500 ppm. And even they admit they should have set it at 5000 ppm, but 2500 ppm is 10% of the lower explosivity limit of 2.5%.

At exposures of up to 6500 ppm, eye irritation, headache, lightheadedness, nasal irritation, and throat irritation are the symptoms. If you get any of those symptoms, you move to fresh air.

Acetone is not genotoxic, only mildly carcinogenic at high dosages, and is not neurotoxic even at the highest dosages tested.

EPA conducted an extensive review of the available toxicity data on acetone and found that acetone "exhibits acute toxicity only at levels that greatly exceed releases and resultant exposures", and further that acetone "exhibits low toxicity in chronic studies".

Say... did you know your own body makes acetone? Small amounts of acetone are produced in the body by the decarboxylation of ketone bodies. And what is the end result of the body processing any acetone it encounters, whether it's made by the body or absorbed / inhaled / ingested? It's metabolized by CYP2E1 via methylglyoxal to D-lactate and pyruvate, and ultimately glucose.

Don't ever drink beer! Since it is a byproduct of fermentation, acetone is a byproduct of the distillery industry. It's in your beer in trace quantities.

Quote from Cycle on June 19th, 2015, 12:58 PM

Don't ever drink beer! Since it is a byproduct of fermentation, acetone is a byproduct of the distillery industry. It's in your beer in trace quantities.

I did a chemistry experiment many years ago distilling the vapors from heated sawdust into acetone.  Seems to me acetone is very basic natural chemical.  Having it as a constituent of an electrolysis mix is rather interesting Cycle.  Keep up the good work.