Sciencemadness Discussion Board

heptane byproduct

Magpie - 22-3-2012 at 17:07

Many of you may have byproduct heptane, as I do, from the distillation of starting fluid. I've wondered what to do with this and think that it might be best to just add it to the fuel tank of my car. I know n-heptane is the zero point of octane ratings for fuel (by definition) but considering that heptane has 9 isomers and a liter would form only 1-2% of the fuel in a full tank, it seems like this would be of little risk. Or, I could try burning it in my lawnmower.

What do you think?

bbartlog - 22-3-2012 at 17:30

Sounds like a fine idea if you have no use for it as a solvent. Just make sure the tank is close to full...

S.C. Wack - 22-3-2012 at 17:52

It's not far from petroleum ether and can be used as such. It's good for chromatography.

peach - 22-3-2012 at 18:01

I bought a pack of the 'One shot' engine cleaner and it's contents is 'Petroleum distillate'.

It gets dumped in with the fuel and it's opposed to help rinse out the injectors. I would expect any light hydrocarbon would do something similar. A bottle of it is about 200ml, and the instructions are; dump it all in, fill the tank. So you might want to start with 100ml and see how that goes.